Falls Count Anywhere

02-15-05

The Passion of the Garcia

RAW
RAW had stiff competition for my attention, as the Westminster Dog Show was on USA. I watched this while flipping back and forth (I was so pulling for the Great Dane in the Working Group, but no dice, damn Great Pyrannes).

Candace Michelle was out to open on the Highlight Reel with Jericho. They showed her commercial. Meh. She’s purdy, though. Muhammad Hassan and more importantly Daivari came out and said that Candace was a disgrace and that she allowed herself to be exploited for the people’s entertainment. Well, duh! This led to a match where Hassan actually beat Jericho. The match was pretty quick and Jericho did better with Hassan than anyone else. Daivari distracted the ref and Hassan hit the Downward Spiral.

HHH, H’s new beard and Ric Flair were talking about JBL coming to RAW to confront Batista. Hmmmmmmm…

They announced that Rowdy Roddy Piper will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. That’s the big name for this year, unless they get Hogan, which is still possible.

Orton and Kiebler did a little thing where she asked him out. Ah, how sweet. They had Batista say that he would take care of JBL on his own. I see where this is going.

Snitsky got DQed in his match against Shelton Benjamin. It wasn’t a good match, save for Benjamin’s selling, and it really didn’t do much. Shelton is far better than he’s being given.

Now THAT'S a tag team...

Tajiri and Regal faced La Resistance, which made me immediately think that they were going to pull the plug on T+R’s reign and give it back to the Frogs. They didn’t. They had a perfectly serviceable match which had Tajiri play face in peril until making a tag to Regal. The match ended when Regal hit a high knee to get the pin. This was a nice ending for a solid, and short, match.

Orton and Christian really got the crowd going for their match. As hard a sell as Orton has been, he’s been over with some demographics, mostly women and gay men, and not other, mostly straight men. He got a really good pop and drew good heat. Christian got potatoed something fierce because he ended up with a lump on the side of his head. Tomko interfered and they did the double finisher escapes finish that’s been so popular of late for the Orton win. Very good match, probably the best that Orton has had in a while.

They reshowed the Basic Instinct trailer for WrestleMania. All the Chrises (Jericho, Benoit, -tian) are good in it, especially Christian. I love the fact that they are making inside references about Trish on TV now.

Edge complained about Batista getting all the attention, even after he cost Edge the title last week. Fair point. He pointed out to Bischoff that if Batista chooses to go to SD! that he’d be well and truly ready to beat HHH for the title at Mania.

Trish Stratus came out and said that the crowd could no longer chant "Slut" at her because Christy Hemme is gettin’ nuded up in Playboy. Christy came out and was terrible in her reactions, but she did say that posing naked doesn’t make you a slut, but sleeping with half the locker room does, though likely not the half you’d expect. Trish slapped her hard, which ruled!

Exclusive from the Playboy shoot...

Kane beat Simon Dean. Coco won the Terrier Group over on USA. Given the choice between watching Coco got a huge pop. Kane got a good reaction. Coco vanquished the Miniature Bull Terrier and the Scotty, who both got amazing reactions and were seen as serious threats, for the group win. Kane pinned a guy with a lame gimmick. Advantage: Coco.

Batista told HHH himself that he’d handle things with JBL because Bradshaw was calling him out. HHH said he had his back. Batista then basically squashed Edge, though my guess is that they were running long and had to make up time. I’d bet they had a much longer match planned and couldn’t deliver. The Titantron showed JBL’s limo arriving and Big Dave went out to greet it. When he got out there, the headlights were in the distance and the Longhorns came roaring towards him. HHH managed to push him out of the way onto a pile of boxes. It’s obvious where this ends up next week when Batista has to choose who he’ll fight for the title at WrestleMania.

Not a bad show, though not top on my list of late.

NEWS
Amy Weber may in fact be gone. The sides have talked, and the WWE was hoping to get things worked out, but it doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen. Shame, she had good potential.

TNA PPV
If there is one thing I can say for TNA, it’s that they have some really good workers. There was some weak work here and some stuff that I wasn’t a fan of, but over-all, a good show.

We got Elix Skipper taking on Petey Williams in a match that I thought was OK but certainly could have gone a bit longer. I like Elix a lot and think he should be getting a good-sized push. Others, like the actual bookers, disagree. The guys seemed to stumble a bit on a series of near-falls, but they pulled out a decent finish debuting Skipper’s new finisher: The Sudden Death DDT.

Jeff Hammond and Brian “Don’t call me Road Dogg" James beat Michael Shane and Frankie The Future Kazarian. I honestly didn’t give a damn about this match and mostly just read my Observer while it was going on. Hammond does NASCAR announcing for FOX Sports and this was bad. They had Shane superkick Frankie by accident and that allowed Hammond to get the pin with an elbow drop.

Larry Zybysko and Dusty Rhodes did a bit where Larry asked for the Jarrett No Guitar Use stipulation to be lifted and Dusty said no. There wasn’t much to this, but even since I learned how to spell Zybysko, I’ve thought I should write it as often as possible.

Raven vs. Dustin Rhodes wasn’t a great match, but there was some OK brawling involved. I think Dustin is pretty underrated when it comes to being a brawler and it’s obvious that he learned a lot from his dad. Raven, which nowhere near his ECW level, did his best and I liked this match. The whole thing ended with Raven getting the DDT and holding the ropes.

America’s Most Wanted took on Kid Kash and Lance Hoyt in a match that I would put in my Very Good column. These guys all know how to work and they had a strong match. At one point, Lance hit a side slam on Storm of AWM for a near fall. That was a sweet move. The champs hit Lance with the Death Sentence to get the pin. Solid work, even if they could have used more time.

Abyss took out Jeff Hardy in a TLC Full Metal Match. Basically, you had to get up the ladder and get the envelope that had the contract in it. This was solid, with Jeff doing all sorts of crazy spots. He went onto the Entry Standee and then did the Swanton onto Abyss who was on the table. That was an amazing spot, and one I don’t want to see very often. There was lots of brawling and at one point, Abyss tossed Hardy into a stack of four table. Jeff got one of the envelopes, but Lordy-be, it was the empty one. Abyss finally got the one with the contract for a match against the TNA champ for the win. Fun match that reminded me of the old days when Jeff was OK and he and Matt and Christian and Edge and The Dudleys had their classics.

...and Phil Collins guests in the TLC match.

Diamond Dallas Page & Monty Brown vs. Bobby Roode & Eric Young followed and they did a good job. DDP hasn’t looked this good in ages. Not bad for a guy who has pushed 50. Brown is a better wrestler than I give him credit for and Roode and Young are both solid. A lot of Pouncing and near-pouncing and the Brown and DDP team got the win with the Diamond Cutter off the top rope.

The match of the night goes to AJ Styles and The Fallen Angel Christopher Daniels for their 30 minute Iron Man Match. They opened with solid mat wrestling, and Daniels is really good on the mat, and I’d say he was on the level of a guy like Dean Malenko. They really opened things up around 10 minutes and Daniels got the first fall with the Angel’s Wings. About ten minutes later, AJ got a roll-up for a pin. They worked a much smarter match than you’d think, especially when you think of the limitations that the 30 minute format places on you. Styles got to bleed and Daniels had him in a version of the STF move that caused a blood spurtage, much like Stone Cold in 1997. He never tapped and they restarted things after Daniels begged Dusty to let them have a Sudden Death Overtime. Styles and Daniels worked a little more and AJ hit the Styles Clash for the win. Great, great match.

Jeff Jarrett beat Kevin Nash in a match that featured all sorts of debuts and interference. As usual, the smaller guy, Jarrett, attacked the knees of the bigger guy, Nash. Nash did some things, which was a little bit amazing. He dropped Jarrett face first on the announce table. They fought out of the building, but came back in. Then, in a strange series of events, a new weapon to the history of wrestling was introduced. Since Jarrett couldn’t use a guitar or he’d lose his title, he brought in a cello. That’s right, a cello, case and all.

They actually made very good use of the cello, including Jarrett slamming Nash’s knee in the case. At one point, after a ref bump, Nash powerbombed Jarrett on the cello. That was an awesome spot. The former Billy Gunn (called No Introduction Necessary) came to TNA and hit Nash with a chair. This led to Sean (The 1-2-3-X-Syxx-Pak) Waltman returning and hitting the BroncoBuster and the X Factor on Jarrett. A couple of more Strokes and the World Title remained with Jeff Jarrett. This was a really good match for Nash and Jarrett, mostly due to some very smart booking.

Better than the Rumble? I’d say yes.

That’s all for today. More on Friday!!!

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Chris Garcia