Falls Count Anywhere

02-13-04

I'm about to unplode.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris and the livin' is easy.

SmackDown!
They did the review of Goldberg attacking Paul Heyman on RAW. Once again, they do these things so well.

Jorge Paez came out in a suit that came out of Teddy Long's closet. Rey Mysterio and Tajiri met in a match for Rey's belt, and The Chavos came out and watched from the ramp. Rey did a sweet twisting leapfrog into a hurrancanrana off the top rope. Paez's hairstyle reminds me of Tin Tin. Rey got the pin. Chavo ran in and beat on Rey until Paez ran him off. Chavo Sr. came in to backjump Paez, but Paez then did two back to back kip-ups and then tossed a weak looking haymaker to Chavo Sr. Too short match, but it was fast good.

Brock comes in to talk to Paul Heyman, who started complaining about his recent injuries. Brock was all sorts of intense. He is really improving on promos.

Scotty 2 Hotty faced Danny Bashem. It wasn't a great match, but Shaniqua gave Scotty a huge clothesline when Scotty got thrown out of the ring. Seriously, it reminded me of a Bradshaw Clothesline from Hell. Danny got the win, and Rikishi went to give Shaniqua the Banzai Drop, but the Bashems pulled her out of harm's way.

Rey and Paez did a little promo that I loved. I love the promos that combine English and Spanish. Having Paez would mean a lot more if the event was going to be in LA, Fresno or El Paso.

They did an excellent interview with Angle talking about his Three-Way Match at No Way Out (Where I will be LIVE on Sunday). There are a bunch of possibilities in the match on Sunday, and they all affect Mania in really significant ways.

Rhyno and Hardcore Holly had a physical match that I liked, but the crowd noise was obviously sweetened. Rhyno almost blew a Powerbomb spot, but he turned it into a Snake Eyes into the top turn buckle. It was a little slow, but a solid effort from both guys. Everyone seemed to hate the ending, though it led to a solid and stiff-looking brawl after the match at ringside.

Kurt Angle got laid out by what seems to be a chair shot. They tried to sell it as something big, but it really didn't come across that well. They were later naming a list of possible assailants, including John Cena, Big Show, and Brock Lesnar.

Brock explores career options.

There's a Mariachi Banda in the Ring!!! I dig me some Mariachi musica. Brock, the master of the F-Cinqo came out in a Chevy's-style sombrero and did some crazy dancing. If he had done that in LA, he would have been the new Freddy Blassie, the uber-heel to every Mexican around that drew big money to watch him get beat up. Brock seemed to be having a great time conducting the mariachis. Eddy runs and the Mariachis and Lesnar bailed out of the ring as Eddy started throwing around microphone stands. One of the mics apparently hit a cameraman and made him bleed. He's Hard Core!

Brock did some great anti-Mexican stuff, like saying that the mariachis had "swam a long way to be here tonight." The face-off between the two wasn't bad. Brock did that great heel thing where he encourages the crowd to chant for the face, only to knock him down by saying that the fans aren't enough. Eddy was getting great heat the whole night. Dave Meltzer has said that Eddy and Foley are great at using the real emotions and situations to draw heat. It showed here more than anywhere. Eddy has such great charisma, and him telling the story of how he ended up in rehab and how everything came crashing down was moving. Eddy got some great pops for his "Day by day…" string, which built to a great promo. This went over great at the arena, and even better to the viewer at home. This was the perfect promo for Eddy to build to the Pay-per-view.

Shelton Benjamin took on Bradshaw. Tazz originated the word "Unplode" which I will now start using regularly. It was a much longer match than it needed to be and the match had no reaction except for the Last Call. Benjamin gave Bradshaw a super-stiff Superkick to Bradshaw's jaw. Bradshaw sold the arm that Shelton worked on, but still got the win with the Clothesline from Hell.

They showed Andre choking Bob Uecker from WrestleMania 3. I always loved that clip.

Jamie Noble did a misogynist promo that didn't seem to get any reaction until he said that he could have any woman he wanted. He said he wanted all the nice stuff he bought for her, which I hope doesn't include the implants. Nidia came out in a truck with a woodchipper. Jamie was great complaining about having to wrestle blindfolded.

Best line, Nidia: "Jamie, I know you don't have a log big enough for a woodchipper." Noble: "Hey, that's how rumors get started!" Classic.

Nidia put the fur coat in the chipper. Nidia looks freakin' hot. If I had to choose one SmackDown! chick to appear in Playboy, it would be Dawn Marie. A close second is Nidia. She's obviously had a lot of work done.

Don't talk. Please. Don't spoil it. Sshhhh...

Torrie and Sable did an interview with Rue. They tried to sell that the two of them were friendly and trying to be funny and fun, but it didn't really work. There was a lot of innuendo about the two of them, perhaps to rebuild that lesbian angle from last year. Still, neither one of them is good on the mic, but they sure look purdy.

Big Show and Lesnar came out and Eddy followed alone. Kurt's music played, but he was still selling the attack, so John Cena came out to take Kurt's place. Big Show has been working as a monster much better of late, mostly due to the push he got coming out of the Rumble. Brock vs. Eddy the first time got a good reaction. Eddy turned a big Press Slam into a Sunset Flip. They gave Eddy a lot of offense first, until Brock hit a huge Spinebuster. Eddy had to work with Big Show a bit, but eventually he got the tag to Cena, who then took a long period of pain. Brock did some nice ground-work, including a gutwrench on the mat, which is a legit move that old-timers used to use. I remember learning it from a guy who studied old shooting techniques. It did slow the match, but it's a part of reeducating the crowd to a slower, more ground-based style. The crowd got into Cena's comeback's and his reversals. I'm not sure who's going to be bigger: Cena or Orton. Crowd was hot for Eddy getting the tag and taking the battle to Brock. Angle ran out and hit both Big Show and Cena with a chair, allowing Eddy to get Cena's chain and give Brock a low blow with it for the win.

Not a spectacular show, but it did what it had to do.

Garcia will be there LIVE! Seek him out. Beat him up.

Short No Way Out Thoughts
Eddy Guerrero pinning Brock on the show before the PPV would normally mean that Eddy is losing at the PPV. I am not sure. Angle is gonna win his match on Sunday, that's obvious, but it should also mean that Eddy Guerrero wins the title. If they are really going to give the title shot to whoever wins the Three-Way Match at No Way Out (where I will be LIVE!!!), and the WWE has been following through on most stips of late, then they won't be able to do Lesnar vs. Goldberg, the real money match for Mania. Also, that means that the obviously coming Angle vs. Eddy feud will happen at Mania, which is expected.

I expect The Bashems and Shaniqua to win their match against Rikishi and Scotty 2 Hotty, though they are in Rikishi's hometown, which sometimes takes precedence over sensible booking.

Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo is a tougher call. My guess is Rey holds onto the belt for another couple of months. This should be a strong match, even with the obvious interference magnets outside. Paez has great personality, and he

No question that the great Nidia vs. Jamie Noble blindfold match will suck, but my guess is that Nidia takes the fall, but really, as long as she brings her boobs, it won't matter much.

I'm looking forward to the show, especially since there have been raves about the recent Rey vs. Brock matches on house shows over the last couple of weeks. Rey vs. Chavo should be good, and Angle vs. Cena vs. Big Show is built in such a way that I am betting they'll get a good match out of it. What might be most interesting is how the crowd treats Rey and Eddy. The stronger the reaction, the more likely it is that they'll get bigger pushes towards the top of the card.

NEWS
Kanyon got fired this week. Not a surprise, since he had done nothing for so long. I still think he's pretty talented, and will fit right in with TNA. He really was one of the better WCW workers who never really got over fully after the fall.

RAW did 3 3.8, up from last week. It was a better show, and in very good news, The Benoit / HHH contract signing did the highest rating. It's not a surprise, as HBK is a great ratings draw with things like this.

Ernest the Cat Miller was fired. His valet was not. It wasn't exactly unexpected, as Vince loved the character but was livid over some of his performances. The Cat would have made a good manager, but it was not meant to be. Lamont is being kept on and has actually started wrestling as of last weekend. My guess is he'll stay around as a jobber with a good gimmick, a role that folks like Johnny K-9, Barry Horowitz and Iron Mike Sharpe made famous.

There is talk of Austin being the ref for the Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar match at WrestleMania. I'm of the opinion that would be a good idea. The only other person who could ref that match would be Hogan, playing up the fact that he has an unavenged loss to Goldberg and Brock both.

Showing a lot of long-term planning, the WWE is said to already be thinking about WrestleMania XXI. According to the Torch, they are thinking of Brock vs. HHH as the dream match. I would be excited to see that match. I believe that HHH will be 35 at that point, and Brock would be 27. It would be most similar to the 1996 match between Bret Hart, 38 at the time, and Shawn Michaels, who was 30. That was the match that made Shawn the obvious future of the WWF. Could be the same sorta thing there. Still, there is more than a year for a number of things to go terribly, terribly wrong.

Among the folks they are thinking of using for the Hall of Fame are Bob Backlund, Greg Valentine (All-Time great heel), Tito Santana, and Superstar Billy Graham.

Brutus Beefcake caused an Anthrax scare on Boston's T. He apparently had a bag of coke with him at work, and forgot about it (doing coke will make you forget things). Someone found it, assumed it was anthrax and an alert went out. Beefcake later copped to it being his. It was posted on 411wrestling.com, and I found confirmation in the Boston Herald this morning. Since Beefcake, real name Ed Leslie, is a known coke user, it isn't that much of a surprise.

FlashBack!
It was the greatest intro push ever. Honestly, everyone who watched wrestling was talking about it when it first started. Some said that it was going to be the biggest thing in the history of WCW. They were wrong and it turned into one of the worst of WCW's failures. The intro I'm talking about was that of Glacier in 1997.

There was a classic teaser done where it was snowing and the entire screen was just snow and then a graphic came up saying: Soon…Blood Runs Cold… and then it blew away. It was classic and got every newsgroup goon talking about how much they wanted to know more. There was a lot of talk that it was going to be Kevin Nash's new gimmick, which was obviously wrong. They did new ones for a few weeks, eventually revealing that the new wrestler would be called Glacier.

Come over here.. .

Glacier got the coolest ring intro ever. There would be fake snow falling and lasers and this cool music playing. He came out dressed like Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat with body armor and the like. He went on a good-sized win streak, beating jobbers left and right with a ton of martial arts moves. He had a few good moves, but really, he wasn't much of a worker. He was played by former indy and UWFi wrestler Sugar Ray Lloyd. He was from a family of Law Enforcement, but went on to become a karate champion.

He also had little in the way of charisma.

The whole thing was actually a way to try and start a Mortal Kombat-like division. They brought in Bryan Clark (WWF's Adam Bomb) to play Wrath, and Chris Kanyon to play Mortis. They also put Wrath and Mortis with manager Jim Mitchell. This was the masterstroke, as Mitchell was the best manager around at the time. They feuded and people started to care less and less. Mortis was always using new and cool moves, but really, the whole unit never got over.

Glacier ended up as a jobber, doing a ton of jobs to Goldberg in the early days of his run. He was injured in one of their matches and was out for a while.

He then did a team with Ernest The Cat Miller, which also sorta sucked. Another feud with Wrath followed, then he did an angle where he sold off his body armor, his music and his snow-making machine. Anyone else smell Vince Russo behind that?

Eventually, he came back as Coach Buzz Stern, which also didn't work. I hear that Lloyd still laces 'em up and does matches here and there.

That's all for Falls Count Anywhere! Next week, I'll finally do that Piledriver story I've been promising (meaning that hopefully, I'll find my tape of it soon)

Chris Garcia