Falls Count Anywhere

01-30-07

It's for the best.

Wrestle Society X
OK, OK, I missed almost all of SmackDown! because I was KOed by the medicine I’m taking to try and clear my sinuses. I set my alarm so I wouldn’t miss the debut of Wrestle Society X, the new promotion that will be playing on MTV.

I’ve been excited about this for a while because they’ve got a lot of folks that I’m a big fan of working for them and it’s always good to give Vince another company with visibility to worry about. The show was fine for what they’re trying to do.

They opened with my man Jack Evans taking on Matt Sydal. I loved Lizzy Valentine doing a slutty Preppy Girl gimmick with Matt Sydal. If you’ve never seen Evans, you’re missing out. He’s an amazing flier and can do flippy things that’ll just blow your freakin’ mind! They had a short match, I think less than 5 minutes, but they crammed so much into that space. Evans just takes mad bumps, including a couple to the outside over the top. They don’t have pads, which is supposed to set them apart from the WWE. It didn’t really matter in ECW and it probably won’t matter much here either. Sydal does mad flying too, including a corkscrew dive onto Evans on the outside. That was awesome, but then Evan did a Flying Space Tiger Drop (it’s a cartwheel into a flipping dive over the top rope) and then the Standing Shooting Star Press…only with a 360 corkscrew twist into things. It was just insane.

Matt Sydal does his Pumphandle Slam into a Michinoku Driver move that is fun to look at too. Lizzy grabs on to Evans’ leg while he’s running the rope, but Evans ends up dragging her with him into the ring and that allows Evans to use her for a dive platform to hit the Swinging DDT which led to the 630 tuck splash. It was just awesome. Short match but it was just packed. This wasn’t the kind of match that you’ll see a lot of storytelling and selling in, but it was really exciting. The crowd was into it as well.

The Main Event was a WSX Rumble. This was an Exploding Ring version of a Royal Rumble. It was also fast and they had ten guys in it and the first two to get a hold of two dangling contracts would meet at the next show to determine the first WSX Champ. The match featured a lot of guys I love, like Teddy Hart, Justin Credible, New Jack, Puma, Vampiro, Koas, Chris Hamrick, 6-Pak, Al Katrazz. Teddy Hart started with Justin Credible. There was a lot of talk about him not being able to use that name, but apparently MTV doesn’t care. Teddy just busted out great stuff. He hit a Fisherman’s DDT (think a PerfectPlex into a DDT) and a Shooting Star Elbow! It was mad nuttiness. Vampiro came in. Since everyone else on the show is much smaller, they put him over as huge, which is a good idea.

The work just gets crazy. Everyone comes in and hits a few spots. Even New Jack got to do a Balcony Dive! Guys get eliminated by being tossed over the top through tables. Teddy went kinda pointlessly, and it ended up with Youth Suicide getting tossed into a pile of Thumbtacks, and then into the Exploding Steel Mesh! That was cool. Vampiro and 6-Pak get the contracts. Good stuff.

It was really mostly a stunt show, but it was a lot of fun and it made me want to see a lot more. It starts at 10:30 on Tuesday weekly.

Somebody's going to get hurt.

The Royal Rumble
The Rumble this year ranged from awful to pretty good. The good was the way they handled The Hardys vs. MNM and John Cena vs. Umaga. The Bad happened to be the other two title matches.

We got the Hardys vs. MNM as our opener and let me say that the plans of the WWE right now have these two teams going as singles and not teaming. To me, that’s a terrible plan except for the fact that Johnny Nitro could be big with some time and seasoning. The match here was very good. The opening was a lot of back and forth with both teams looking great. I’d say the star was Jeff, but he has an amazing way of taking the full focus when he doesn’t really deserve it. He did nail a Whisper in the Wind for a near fall. MNM sold really well, and they played bad guy better than most tag teams today.

MNM was about to get the Snapshot on Matt, but Jeff came in and broke it up. That gave the chance to hit Poetry in Motion. Matt hit the Side Effect and the Twist of Fate, which allowed Jeff to hit the Swanton for the win. Solid match with a good ending. That’s the way you start a PPV that you’re afraid might have too many bad matches.

Speaking of bad matches, Lashley beat Test. He treated him like a jobber. It was a really bad match made worse by the finish they ripped off from the Rhino match a couple of months ago in TNA. Test had been beaten bad, thrown out and he just allowed himself to be counted out. That’s an OK finish for anything but a title match. It just doesn’t make sense. Lashley looked OK here, but not by much.

Hey, another bad match! Mr. Kennedy becomes a real star in the eyes of many by losing to Batista in a match where Batista was less than zero. The guy has lost some of his mobility, a lot of his charisma and it seems like a lot of his confidence. Kennedy got a few chants of his name, which is perfect! He worked hard and carried Batista’s ass to a match that wasn’t good, but at least it was passable. The return of Batista has failed and they need to get the belt onto someone better soon. Sadly, I don’t see who they could go with. Batista won with the DemonBomb.

Umaga and Cena had their Last Man Standing match and it was really good. Umaga knows how to work, and Cena can go pretty well in these gimmick matches. Hell, he even had a great one with JBL a year and a half ago. This was a good brawl, solid and well-paced.

If you get hit by a monitor, do you see yourself coming?

At one point, Cena threw the stairs Umaga had brought in into his face, which is awesome! Cena bled after a while and it gushed a bit towards the end. Umaga’s added an awesome Spinning Rock Bottom-type move. Cena hit an Alabama Slam! Umaga tried to splash Cena through a table, but Johnny-boy moved. Alejandro removed the top rope so that Umaga could use the metal connector, but Cena managed to get Umaga in the STFU and then put the rope around Umaga’s throat, choking him. Umaga couldn’t answer the ten count and Cena won. Really good, 20+ minute match. Cena’s been on a roll of late.

The Royal Rumble. What can I say, I’ve always loved it. This years model looked like it was going to be pretty bland, and about ¾ of the way through, I was thinking that it would go down as one of the less interesting Rumbles ever. Then the last ten minutes happened and it became one of the best.

To open, we had Ric Flair and Fit Finlay. Great pairing in those two. Fit Finlay was coming off good vote numbers in the Wrestling Observer Awards and he looked great. They were followed by Kenny, who just started up his thing with Flair with Fit helping him out. I thought that we’d get one of the favorites early and Edge came in at Number 5. Edge hit a couple of Spears and managed to toss Kenny early. Nice! There was some real nice action when Shelton came in at number 10, but it was when Kane came in that things got interesting. He chokeslammed Sabu through the table! Awesome!

CM Punk came in right after that. He and Shelton worked well for a bit. Orton came in and I didn’t think he did much. I was very happy to see Benoit in and throwin’ German Suplexes around. RVD came in after Chris and threw a bunch of kicks. He’s not long for the WWE, but he’s still working hard. Big Viz comes in, followed by Johnny Nitro and then Kevin Thorn. We didn’t get enough close-ups of Ariel in that one. Frankly, if they’d announced that Kevin Thorn was coming in and just put Ariel in frame for a couple of minutes and no one else, I’d have been happy.

The next fifteen minutes or so are pretty typical and it comes out that Undertaker is number 30. The match goes on and it’s down to Edge, Orton, Michaels and Undertaker. Michaels actually eliminates Edge and Orton (after UT had been waffled with a wicked chairshot) and that left Undertaker and Shawn.

This was basically a match in and of itself. They were great together, teasing eliminations a few times and making it an exciting time. A lot of folks forget the great feud these two had in 1997 (including the first Hell in a Cell that I still think is the best of all-time) and they worked so beautifully together. The Undertaker isn’t the best worker in the world, but he understands drama. Michaels is still one of the best workers in the world and he especially understands how to heighten drama.

These two just went for it and had a match that wrung every ounce of drama out of the moment. They were great. They both hit finishers, but it was Michaels missing a second SuperKick that allowed Taker to toss him out and win the Rumble for the first time.

That’s a historic win. Of the big six of the 1990s (Undertaker, The Rock, Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, Mick Foley and HHH), only UT and Foley had never won the Rumble. Now the Mick stands alone. UT has headlined only one WrestleMania. (WrestleMania The 13th) and still has his streak on the line. The odds are they’ll put him up against Batista and he’ll win. It will also likely be his last run with the title.

That’s all for today! More on Thursday!

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Chris Garcia