Falls Count Anywhere

01-27-04

I want to be in Playboy's tag team.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris and the power of Chrysler compels you!

RAW
RAW opened with Jericho coming out asking for a match with HHH since he was the last RAW wrestler in the Rumble. As he still had his Survivor Series favor to burn, he said that was how he was going to use it. Jericho is a complete face now, I think. Bischoff came out and said he could have his match or he could use his favor to prevent a Trish vs. Kane match. Jericho cancelled the Trish beating and ended up booked with RVD against Evolution. This was a great slimy Bischoff performance.

The handicap match is being overdone these days, but this wasn't a half-bad match. Orton did some really good stuff, including a nice short arm scissors variant. Bautista was overpowering, as always, and he even powerbombed Jericho on the floor. This was an old All Japan Six-Man trick: have one of the members of a team KOed for half the match so that their fiery comeback gets even more heat. RVD took some punishment for a while, and he didn't look particularly good, though he was better than some of the matches he's had of late.

Jericho came back and fought with gumption. Randy Orton looks to have really improved, but when Jericho had Bautista in the Walls, Orton ran and tried the RKO, but slipped off. He didn't hesitate a bit, but ran back against the ropes and then delivered the RKO, which connected. A pretty good match with very smart booking.

Orton later asked for permission to attack Foley, which was kinda strange, but Austin said that Foley would have a chance to speak.

Trish came and thanked Jericho for his help. They did the whole Let's Just Be Friends thing and Christian came in to ride Jericho for his actions of late. Jericho then agreed to team with Christian for a Number One Contenders Match next week.

Lawler was being himself during the Woman's tag match, making all sorts of comments about the lovely ladies in the ring. Victoria, who is still crazy and a face, looked great as usual. Lita came out to team with her against Molly and Jazz. The women's division is having some troubles. Victoria is a great performer, but her knee is making it hard for her to work. Lita is still tentative in the ring working the new style and was kinda sloppy in this match. Jazz is great, but the crowd seldom reacts to her unless she's beating on Trish. Molly is solid in just about every way. Trish is the real star of the division, but she's currently stuck in the Jericho storyline.

HHH came out to do one of his better gabfests. He looked beat up, which was likely a combination of make-up and a real beating. He put over the title and the match at the Rumble. Michaels came out, looking equally hellish, and said that this feud was nowhere near over. That brought out Austin who agreed that Michaels should get his rematch, but that Michaels didn't win the Rumble, so he doesn't get the match at Mania. He brought out Benoit to a larger pop than I can ever remember Benoit getting in the WWE. He was a part of the big pops when he, Eddy, Dean, and Saturn came over as the Radicals, but this was his single best. There are a lot of folks on the net who are worried because his reaction was nowhere near the level that Michaels got.

Benoit, for all his hard work, is not a mic guy, and having him work the stick with Michaels and HHH out there wasn't a great idea. The crowd went silent during his promo, which is a bad sign. There are folks who say that Cena or Angle would have been a better choice to win the Rumble because the crowd is much more into them as characters, though they are very much into Benoit for his wrestling. I don't know that I agree, but they should give him the full push and have him win the title to establish him for the long run, much like they did with HHH when he first took the title and everyone hated him for different reasons than they do now.

I will hug him and pet him and call him George.

Kane beat down Buh-Buh Dudley for a while, earning himself another DQ loss. After the bell, the lights went out and the old Undertaker music hit and an awesome video played. The ring was then bathed in blue light, which made Kane look extremely creepy. The man-monster left the ring, terrified of what might happen next.

Bischoff and Paul Heyman did a bit over the phone that was really fun. Heyman claimed that the whole Benoit to RAW thing was perpetrated by Austin and Bischoff playing a very convincing game of "Good Cop / Bad Cop."

Paul was excellent claiming that he was gonna sue. Coach came in and pointed out that Eric got his head handed to him by Paul E. at the Rumble, so Bisch made a match with Coach and Goldberg.

Rico took on Rob Conway in a match that had one real highlight: Jackie Gayda dropping her top to distract Conway. She got a good pop for it, the match ended and that was that. They had been pushing the whole show that Playboy was looking for a tag team (Sable and Torrie in next month's issue) to show. I don't know why they are doing this since the last issue showed Torrie and Sable together and talked about their spread.

Torrie and Sable who?

Coach came out to beg for Goldberg not to hurt him, claiming that nobody wanted to see him get hurt. Theodore R. Long came out and did the sweet-talking that he does so well. He said that Mark Henry was gonna watch his back, which apparently meant taking the match for him. Goldberg came out and beat on Henry, including doing an awesome powerslam on the guy, all while Coach watched perched up on the top turnbuckle. Goldberg then tossed Henry out of the ring, attacked Coach, eventually giving him the jackhammer. The crowd really liked that. Goldberg then said to the camera "I don't care what show you're on, Lesnar. You're next!"

The main event slot was Foley, and it was classic Foley. He talked about how he used to ply his anger in his matches, and that it worked. He said he gave it up when he stopped wrestling. He made some fine comments about baseball, proving that he is indeed a baseball history type. Then he called Randy Orton out to the ring. He asked Orton to spit on him again, and after a little slapping of the youngster, he did. Foley then asked that he go deep and hock up some lung butter, getting the crowd to chant "Loogie! Loogie!"

Randy gave him one that stuck to his cheek and which the camera zoomed in on. It was pretty gross, but it was done for a great reason. Mick talked about his four kids and how they had given him far worse. He said Orton hadn't just spit on him a few weeks ago, but had spit on his legacy. Mick then punched himself in the face a few times, drawing blood. Any promo where a guy bleeds is sweet. Mick then said that there is a time and a place for hatred, like in Hershey, PA, and he pounded on Orton. The crowd went nuts, and Evolution came out to make the save. Mick fought them off for a while, but he ended up taking a little from them. After rolling out of the ring and grabbing a chair, Mick cleaned house.

This was a brilliantly booked RAW. While the execution wasn't always there, it was well laid-out and smartly written. They are building the Mania in a very smart way. It makes sense to give the shot Benoit earned to RAW since they have no PPV before Mania and can build it properly, whereas SmackDown! has to deal with the Eddy vs. Brock match next month. Bischoff was great in his bits, as was Austin. It should be a fun ride to Mania.

News
SmackDown! did a big 3.6 rating last week. Why? Hard to say. My guess is the return of Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar coupled with the Guerreros' main event. This should speak strong for Eddy's continued push.

The Rumble sold out, with no major portions of the arena curtained off. After the show, Benoit and Austin were in the ring for a while celebrating, and Benoit did an emotional speech to the fans. It went off big with the fans.

Matt Morgan had a scary moment at the Reading, PA, house show. He took a clothesline from Bob Holly and didn't get up. Damage Control had to come out and he went to the hospital. It's apparently a stinger, but it's been deemed not very serious.

Jack Tunney, former WWF figurehead President, passed away this past weekend. He was 68. Affiliated with Toronto wrestling for years, I thought Tunney had died a long time ago.

MTV will be doing Rock 'n Jock football this year. The team captains will be two guys who played on the same team in college: Warren "Don't Call Me Bob" Sapp of the Tampa Bay Bucs and The Rock. Should be fun.

Filter on G4 TV did a top ten Wrestling games segment which Big Show appeared on. It came down like this.
1. WWE Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain;
2: WWF No Mercy (N64);
3. Def Jam Vendetta;
4. WWF Wrestlemania (Arcade);
5. WWE Wrestlemania 19;
6. Backyard Wrestling;
7. WWE Raw 2 (XBox);
8. Legends of Wrestling 2 (PS2);
9. Pro Wrestling (NES);
10. WCW Mayhem.

Now, any list that puts Pro Wrestling on the NES at number 9 isn't worth my time. SmackDown! is a good game, but I still prefer WCW/nWo Revenge. It was a better game. There were a ton of arcade games that were better, and Fire Pro Wrestling from Japan was my fave console game.

FlashBack!
This is a short one about some classic celebrity wrestling sightings over the last twenty years or so. Some were at big shows, others were just folks that I came across at house shows.

WrestleMania I- In the ring you had Muhammad Ali, Liberace, and Billy Martin, but in the front row sat the man himself: Andy Warhol. Warhol was a big wrestling fan, never missing a WWF event in the Garden. There are tons of tapes where you can clearly see him enjoying the matches. The best show I ever saw was from the 1970s where you can see Andy and Udo Kier sitting together, politely clapping for Bob Backlund.

WrestleMania II- Susan St. James was a co-announcer, Mary Hart was involved, as were a bunch of football players. Also, Cathy Lee Crosby, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and boxing legend Lou Duva. But, during the LA segment of the show G. Gordon Liddy, my favorite person involved with Watergate, was the timekeeper. I was so happy when I spotted him a couple of years ago.

John Lithgow went to a WCW show in the mid-1990s. It was a Nitro and it was so funny seeing this guy who had just played FDR pretending to have a good time.

...despite his not actually wrestling, an entire promotion beat the snot out of him.

Screech, aka Dustin Diamond, used to show up at all sorts of wrestling shows. He was at three WrestleManias in a row and has appeared on TNA and in Memphis. He's a big fan from way back.

How about Jason Hervey? He was a close friend of Eric Bischoff and had a huge effect on the WCW in the middle 1990s. He was at a ton of shows. His star faded at the same time as WCW's.

David Letterman was a fan of Dick the Bruiser and you can see him on an old time wrestling tape of Bruiser and Crusher vs. two chumps. Bobby Heenan was the manager who got bumped around and David Letterman was sitting in the second row, cheering like a schoolgirl.

Drew Carrey was in a Royal Rumble and I have always maintained that I saw him at a WWF taping in the early 1990s when he was still a comic on the road.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen The Rundown's Ernie Reyes Jr. at WWF events in the Bay Area. He was always a big fan.

There is a story about Philadelphia's ECW Arena and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch. I can't prove that it was him, but I've heard the story that he showed up for a show after his film had a special showing earlier in the day.

Jimmy Kimmel was at a bunch of wrestling shows in the late 1990s. I used to spot him and go "hey, there's that guy from Win Ben Stein's Money." Later it was, "hey, there's that ASS from The Man Show."

Ben Stiller is a big wrestling nut and has been to all sorts of WWF events, even plugging Mystery Men by appearing on an episode of RAW on the old GTV segment.

One of my favorites has to be seeing former Mayor Tom McEnery at the San Jose Arena when I went to see a show there a couple of years back. I wonder how arena management feels when someone who has a convention center named after them comes to visit.

That's all for this week. You can look forward to a guest writer on Friday as I will be living it up in SF and LA for a few days. Best of luck to my cherished readers as Mr. Chairshots, Michael P.S. Goodson returns to the site.

Chris Garcia