Falls Count Anywhere

01-31-06

...as if the weird ever really went away...

Brock Lesnar Update
Everyone in wrestling is interested in the status of Brock Lesnar. Everyone wants to know if he’s free to contact about working for them. Well, the WWE got a little more time, so instead of having the official argument stage on Friday, as had been the plan, they got a few more days and will now have their 20 minutes to argue on February the 8th. The odds are the WWE might luck out and have the No Compete upheld for the US, but the World-wide portion is almost 100% done for. There’s still the thought that the WWE will make a play for him. We should have news in two weeks.

SmackDown!
The idea that they seem to be working on is putting on good wrestling. They used one great match and everything else was pretty good.

They opened with Mark Henry vs. Rey Mysterio. I’m seeing Rey doing jobs because they’re giving him the shot at WrestleMania against Kurt Angle. Mark Henry is much stronger now than he has been in any push he’s gotten in the last five years. This match wasn’t top quality, and it wasn’t near the level of last week's, but it still had some nice moments. Rey did an awesome 619 on Mark around the ringpost on the outside. Henry got the win with the PowerSlam.

They had Matt Hardy talk about being the underdog in the Rumble. He’ll probably last until Fit Finlay arrives and eliminates him, setting up their feud even more.

There was a three-way with The Dicks, The Mexicools and Nunzio and Vito. I didn’t see it. I hear that the Mexicools won with the Wheelbarrow-Facebuster combo. These guys are just kinda spinning their wheels, though management really likes Psicosis and SuperCrazy. Psicosis had to change his name to Nicho when they worked in Mexico because the commission wasn’t bribed to allow him to use the Psicosis name.

In a great match, Chris Benoit and Randy Orton met in a No Hold Barred match which proves that these two match up so well they should have a longer program over something meaningful. They started out with Orton on the offense on the outside, including getting a near-fall on the outside. They went back and forth, included lots of brawling and ended up with Orton nailing Benoit with a trash can right before the commercial. Randy used a trash can as a block when Benoit tried to drop the headbutt off the top. Nice! Benoit hit Randy with a trashcan lid and then put on the Crossface which led to the tap. Great stuff.

Finlay beat Funaki in a pretty good match. At one point, Funaki went for a Tornado DDT on the outside, but Fit tossed him into the ring mat. Nice! Fit used the Emerald Fusion, the finisher of Mitsuharu Misawa in Japan. He used it again. This was a fun little match. Funaki is so poorly used but he never fails to get himself in good matches. Then again, there were some boring chants heard on this one.

I missed a couple of matches, I think (I know that JBL vs. Scotty 2 Hotty was one and it featured The Boogeyman). When I got back, Kurt Angle was taking on MNM. Melina is so damn hot. The match was pretty good, with Kurt looking like he’s in a bit of pain. He still managed to give a good performance. There was the typical finish where they had Angle give Nitro the Belly-to-Belly over the top to the outside and then put the AnkleLock on Mercury for the submission. Mark Henry came in and attacked. They’ve done what they can, but Angle still seems unbeatable.

News that is moot by the time you read this
There’s lots of arguing going on about Cena vs. Edge. Edge got great ratings, including a big one this last week, and more than half of the staff wanted Edge to retain and go on to Mania to face HHH in place of Cena. That would have required H to turn, which he wouldn’t do. I’ve heard from some strong sources that Edge has gone up in everyone’s eyes and folks think he could be a long-run champion, but HHH hasn’t been sold on that fact. He’s still going up against Cena at Mania and he’ll probably win. I would suspect that Edge might get thought about for a move to SmackDown! to take the belt after a bit. His heat may be waning if they go with Cena winning.

Royal Rumble , RAW...

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Chris Garcia