Falls Count Anywhere

02-03-04

I'M HARDCORE! I'M HARDCORE!

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris and I saw Magic Johnson pumping gas in Brentwood!

RAW
RAW opens by showing what happened to bring Benoit over to RAW. It was a nice package that led to Jericho opening things in the arena with his Highlight Reel. Benoit still isn't getting the response he should be for his interviews; he's got a great in-ring charisma, but far less on the stick. They need to do something about that, like not having him talk much, if they are going to convince the crowd to cheer for him.

Flair came out to add a bit to the segment. He was doin' Flair 1986, which is the best type of Flair to get a new top-level star over. Flair should be upset that he didn't do better in the Best on Interviews voting, as he gave a hell of an interview. Bischoff came out in Greg Proops' glasses to explain that he is not Paul Heyman. Hey, Bisch, the best way to do that is to not have your company go under. Actually, it's a little late for that.

They make a Tag Titles match between Flair and Bautista vs. Jericho and Christian and Benoit against…well, they don't say. Nice way to hold fans for a commercial break.

Benoit ended up having to take on Mark Henry in a match that had no heat early. There were a few Benoit chants, but not much behind this match. You can't put the next big thing in a match with a guy like Mark Henry. They need to give him decisive wins over top names. That's how you get folks to buy into a new challenger. The fact that Benoit isn't getting a bigger reaction may dictate how much of a push he gets.

The new WrestleMania XX commercial is awesome. The RAW commercial about ignoring the rules was pretty good too. They've always done those things much better than anyone else.

Once again, they've had The Coach out on commentary. Vince is really high on Coach, but he hasn't gotten any better. I hope someone will explain to Vince what's goin' on.

They had an insider segment between Austin and Michaels where Austin said that Michaels "never failed to do anything they've asked of you," obviously ignoring the loss of smiles and phantom knee injuries to avoid losing belts.

They showed a great Mick Foley segment which utilized all the great editing that the WWE is so good at. It recapped the events of last week, a great segment like the ones they did for the Mankind / Undertaker feud back in 1996. Those helped make Mankind into the big star that he became, and it could happen again. Mick and Test had a face-off that led to Randy Orton jumping Mick from behind. Randy was great when Test tried to join in and he told him to back off.

OK, Rico got a great reaction riding Rene Dupree like a pony. I'm also a fan of the pants that Jacky was wearing this week. Hey, they brought up Lawler's stint as a Playboy photographer. Jacky is freakin' hot. After the first couple of spots, the crowd died, though Jacky brought them back into it a little. The match went way long, though there were a couple of "We Want

I'm open to suggestions...

Puppies!" chants. To take away some attention from the events in the ring, they brought out Stacey Kiebler. Rico got the win when Stacey showed off her ass to the Frenchman and Rico got his spinkick in. Stacey and Jacky then danced suggestively.

After that, they cut to Trish backstage talking with Christian about The Beatles, making a great leap of logic by referring to Trish as Yoko. Frankly, I hated Linda McCartney (God Rest Her Soul) far more than Yoko.

Bischoff came out to tell folks that Trish wouldn't be getting her title shot at Molly Holly, but instead would be getting the match that Bisch made for last week with Kane. Jericho came in to make the save and brawl with Jericho a bit. Apparently a ploy to get Jericho out so that Kane could injure him, he gave Jericho a brutal knee breaker on the post.

Goldberg and Kane had a solid bout of fisticuffs. The guys may not be classically trained in the fine art of grappling, but they do know how to make a match come across as physical. Goldberg got a nice reaction coming out and then early in the bout. He also got a few chants. Not spectacular, but it was fair. They brought back the lightning thing, which I always liked, and they did another Undertaker tease, which I pray leads to old UT coming back. Goldberg hit the spear, then left the ring as it started to fog over and turn all blue. Kane freaks again and runs away through the crowd.

Matt Hardy took on Booker T in a match of two guys who can go and always seem to get lost in the shuffle. There seemed to be some sloppiness early on, but they brought it back together. It wasn't a very good match, and it lacked heat, but it had moments.

This may haunt both Spike and HHH's political aspirations...

HHH came out and gave an interview that didn't do much for the crowd. He's a good talker, and maybe it was a crowd that didn't seemed very enthused most of the night, but he didn't get much reaction. He then took on Spike Dudley in a mugging. It was one of those classic Heel beating on a little face matches that I used to like as a younger, more sadistic, kid.

So, Steve Austin gave a ticket to No Way Out to Goldberg so that he could watch Brock up close. It was a smart segment.

Christian and Jericho had a little match with Flair and Bautista. They went through their series of moves a little too cleanly. At some point, effortless work just seems too easy and thus there's no real battle. Maybe the night had beaten me down. Bautista isn't quite there yet. He's the Lex Luger of Evolution: he's got all the look and less than an acceptable amount of ability. Jericho had Flair tapping but he was busy chiding Bautista for beating on Christian. Flair put Jericho in the figure four, which with Jericho's busted knee led to the submission. Flair usually gets a good reaction, but to this point in the show, he's been the only one to get a strong reaction for anything, save for Foley and the rough riding that Rico did.

Michaels and Randy Orton had a Non-Title Match. It wasn't terrible, but it lacked heat to start. Austin came out after a ref bump and took Referee Mike Ciota to the back on his all-terrain vehicle and replaced him with Earl Hebner. Michaels seemed to hurt his knee as they went to commercial.

For some reason, the crowd was hot right as we came back from break with Michaels in a necklock. Things were a bit more heated from that point on, but still not a hot crowd at all. The match got good, and Foley came out and made the crowd go nuts. He came to the ring and mixed it up with Orton for a while. The crowd went nuts for Mick. They brawled into the crowd until Evolution came out and broke it up. HHH came out and beat on Shawn Michaels until Benoit came out and stood up to HHH. H acted afraid, which got the crowd chanting for Benoit, which is a positive step.

The show was sort of dead except for the Jericho stuff and Foley. The Benoit movement needs a big push and a series of big wins. RAW has a big chance right now as it rides a wave of higher than usual viewership and it needs to make it big to succeed.

NEWS
Hey, the WWE is showing signs of life, and this means more than you might think. SmackDown! did a huge 4.8 rating in the metered markets (The 55 biggest markets in the US) which could easily translate into a 4.0 rating, the biggest in ages. The metered and the final ratings aren't always similar, as the past has shown, but it looks like it may hold up. RAW did a big number this past week, 4.0, which is higher than any RAW since September of last year. The highest rated segment, naturally, was Orton and Foley facing off. Foley has been a big ratings mover of late. Even if RAW comes in at a 4.0, more folks still watched SmackDown!, as the cable universe is smaller. I think it would mean that roughly a half-million more folks watched SmackDown! than RAW.

By the way, I thought that the Royal Rumble on SD! was fantastic, especially with Angle and Eddy doing an amazing job teasing false finishes when it was just the two of them. It was a great match and there seems to be a movement to put longer, more intense matches on as Main Events, which is a very good thing for guys like Benoit, Guerrero, Lesnar, Angle, Michaels, and Jericho.

The plans may be changing, as once upon a time it was a one on one with HHH and Benoit at WrestleMania, but now they seem to be putting Shawn Michaels into the match. It would mean so much more to have HHH lose the belt to Benoit in a singles match. Adding Michaels, which admittedly will likely result in a better match, would actually hurt Benoit's push. It may have also been done so HHH doesn't have to be pinned by Benoit to lose the belt. It's also not 100% certain yet, as Vince is changing things up a little to keep folks guessing.

There has been talk of a Cruiserweight Battle Royal at Mania. I think it wouldn't get the time it deserved, and would be best to skip it…if they weren't talking about bringing back Dean Malenko for the match. Seeing Dean-o the Machine-o back for one match only is enough to justify giving it the time.

Hard Boiled Haggerty passed away this passed week. He was one of the bigger names in the wrestling game as he successfully made the jump from wrestling to movies, almost always playing small parts or doing stunts.

Last call?

Tammy Sytch, aka Tammy Lynn Fytch, aka Sunny, has been saying that she is calling it quits from wrestling. We'll see how long it lasts. She really was the first WWF Diva and a huge star for a couple of years before her issues started to take over.

A scary bit of news from UFC. Randy Couture, a 40-year old UFC main eventer, was fighting Vitor Belfort and got caught with a grazing punch across the eyelid, which ripped nearly clean off. It turned out to be less bad than originally thought, but an eyelid injury is bad news for any fighter.

There has been talk of the WWE reviving the ECW brand name. I've also read in the Observer that there is talk about re-launching the Shotgun Saturday Night concept, which was a toned-down version of the ECW concept. I'm not sure either would work, as neither fit in with what Vince has been trying to get wrestlers to do in their matches of late.

FlashBack!
How important is acting to pulling off an angle? Well, that's a very good question. I can say for sure that there are some angles that wouldn't work unless the participants were excellent at getting the emotions across. There is one angle in particular that worked because of an excellent performance from the supposedly-retiring Tammy Sytch.

The New Age Outlaws, ½ of the glorious tribe called Degeneration-X, had been running rough-shod over everybody and had been feuding with Terry Funk, as Chainsaw Charlie, and Mick Foley as Cactus Jack. In February of 1998, Terry and Mick decided that it would be fun to have a nice little violent match as they enjoy the pain they inflict on one another. Makes sense, right? Of course it does.

The match is a fun little piece of brawling, as Cactus took it a step further than New Jack when he used to bring a garbage can full of weapons to the ring. Jack brought a dumpster out, full of fun things to hit folks with. The two of them brawl and Cactus tosses Terry into the dumpster, then climbs onto the TitanTron and drops the Cactus elbow.

HE'S HARDCORE! HE'S HARDCORE!

Sure, she's smug NOW...

The two of them lay there for a minute, and then the Outlaws come out and lock the dumpster. The Outlaws then procede to push the dumpster off the side of the ramp, maybe fifteen feet off of the ground. The place goes nuts, with the announcers doing the great silent freak-out. There were a ton of garbage bags full of cushioning, but still, it was an impressive visual.

Here's where it got great.

A bunch of other wrestlers came running out to check on the boys. Pretty much the entire locker room, faces and heels, come out as the Paramedics work on stabilizing their necks and putting them onto backboards. Everyone is hot at the Outlaws, as Billy Gunn keeps saying, "We didn't think it'd be this bad." There are a few brawls, which JR calls a Wrestlers' Court, and the Ambulance comes out. The whole thing takes almost twenty minutes of air time.

What made it for me was Sunny. She came out and was in hysterics. She was crying, holding Terry's hand, saying "You're gonna OK." as he was looked at. Her reaction seemed totally real, so incredibly emotional that the whole angle gained a big touch of credibility. You could tell that the guys were alright, but the reaction from Sunny blurred everything.

Things calmed down, including the crowd, and the show went on. They blew the whole angle by having Terry and Mick run in later in the show, but still, the image of everyone there pulling for Terry and Mick was enough to seal this angle as an all-time great.

That's another Falls Count Anywhere! More on Friday.

Chris Garcia