Falls Count Anywhere

02-17-04

You say Guerrero, I say Guerraro.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris and welcome to the Guerrero Era!

RAW
HHH comes out to start, complaining that Eric Bischoff won't tell him who he's going to face at WrestleMania. He calls out Eric Bischoff to get an answer. The evil one retorts that he's canceling the Benoit vs. Michaels match, which gets huge boos from the Bakersfield crowd. Then he says that HHH can choose to defend against either Shawn Michaels or Benoit. HHH does a little face spot asking if the fans wanna see him wrestle tonight, and they cheer loud. They start chanting for HBK very loud, which isn't a great sign when they have been building Benoit for the last month. Then he says he doesn't care and and he gets a loud "You Suck" chant. Benoit comes out and does a slight bit of talking before attacking HHH and trading blows with him for a while.

The Bakersfield crowd was great as they would start cheering loud when Benoit was beating on HHH and quickly turn to boos when HHH would get a brief spit of offense. Benoit eventually got the Crossface and held it until Evolution came out. Good stuff.

Booker T and RVD took on Bautista and Ric Flair for the Tag Team Titles. Flair is still great with psychology, but working with RVD doesn't help him look less old. Bautista isn't great. RVD looked off, not at all crisp and kinda sluggish. He missed a pescado and looked like he hurt his knee as they went to the commercial. Bautista did an awful Powerslam when we came back from the break. Honestly, RVD isn't working with any precision tonight. He's like Randy Savage, only bringing the big game to main events. Booker made the tag and gave a serious back suplex to Bautista. It was awesome. Randy Orton worked over Booker's knee on the outside, allowing Flair to work the knee and get the figure four on Booker. Mick Foley came out to deal with Orton, which was the perfect distraction for RVD to get to the top and deliver the 5Star Frog Splash for the pin. A slightly better than average match, but good enough for a TV opener. The crowd gave a nice pop for the finish.

They do a review of the Lesnar/Goldberg stuff from No Way Out, and they make it look really good. This was great to see live. Stone Cold and Bisch were going over the tape backstage, with Austin saying that he needed an answer for who would be facing HHH at WrestleMania by the end of the night. He said he was going to beat on Eric if'n he didn't get the ruling, and Eric said OK and walked out and ran into Randy Orton. Orton said he wanted to have a fight with Mick Foley, but Eric said it would not be sanctioned.

Jericho and Christian had a little skit backstage. Jericho said that he wanted to be more than friends with Trish, and that he was a hopeless romantic and that he was going to tell Trish how he felt. Christian said that he thought someone else might be in the hunt. Jericho then said he was going to take Kane "Downtown to Chinatown" since Bisch made the match to take advantage of his injury.

Kane beat on Jericho for a while, working on his leg. Jericho was selling it very well, which is one of his strong suits. Jericho did a float over, but when he landed, he sold the knee again. The fans booed when the ref called the match. Then Kane picked up Jericho like he was going to give him a backbreaker, and tossed him out to the outside. Then he gave him a knee buster into the ringpost. Kane then took the mic in the ring and complained about people playing supernatural mind games with him. He then kept talking about burying the Undertaker alive. He then kept yelling that the Undertaker is Dead and then he did his pyro, as walked out of the ring as the lights went out and the TitanTron. Then the rain that came fell mainly onto Kane. Yes, it was raining inside the arena, hopefully only on Kane, and the Undertaker's bell rang.

But I digress...

At this point, I must say that the new Fox show The Littlest Groom is rad. They found the world's hottest little person, Mika, and they should build a show around her. The guy was funny when he was reacting to the big chicks, especially the exceptionally hot Zoey. Sorry, it was just that good.

Randy Orton called out Mick Foley for a fight and they brawled a little in the ring. Mick got the better of Orton and was so over with the crowd that his reaction may have been equal to Eddy's coming out last night. Flair came out and then Bautista. They distracted Mick enough to allow Orton to take advantage. Evolution stomped on Foley in the corner. Orton gave Foley a brutal Dory Funk Uppercut while Foley was hanging off the apron. Orton gave Foley the RKO. The crowd was way into Evolution as heels. The beat down went on a little long, but Bautista and the boys gave a brutal powerbomb.

Jacky Gayda and Stacey came out to look pretty. They complained about Sable saying that they had no class. Jacky showed off all her sluttiness.

Steve Austin and Bisch had another segment where they were talking about the Monday Night War. He brought up the time that Bischoff challenged Vince McMahon to a fight. Eric said that he could kick Vince's ass, and of course, Vince was standing right behind him. Vince said he had it all worked out and would announce it by the end of the show.

But I digress, though not as much...

Trish and Victoria came out to take on Molly and Jazz. Victoria looked hot and crazy in her new yellow two piece outfit. Lillian Garcia looked sweet as always. The match was pretty good, and Teddy Long was great at yelling encouragement to Jazz as she was on offense. Trish is really good. She is one of the best US women in wrestling for the last decade. Molly has been good recently too, but not as good as Trish. Unfortunately, it looks like the knee problems have held back Victoria. Victoria did the old Davey Boy Smith Cartwheel escape. Then she did a splitlegged Leapfrog. Maybe I was wrong about the knee. Victoria's Widow's Peak got the win. It's my fave move right now. Test ran in to bring the hottest feud on Sunday Night Heat to RAW. Test was about to powerbomb Trish when Christian ran in to make the save.

Christian gave Trish the rose that Jericho had meant to give to her, even using Jericho's same words to give it to her. Nice touch, even if it was extremely telegraphed.

Chris Benoit took on Shawn Michaels in a match that started out hard hitting and had really good heat the whole way. The two stared down to open, with Michaels doing his pre-Sweet Chin Music stomp to intimidate. Nice touch. Shawn Michaels worked over Benoit's neck while Benoit just brought his impact stuff at HBK. Michaels did his Kip-up, and a fair amount of the crowd booed him for it. Then Michaels went for the Flying Elbow and Benoit moved. The crowd seems to appreciate the style of this match, which is slightly more impact-based than they have been pushing. There wasn't a long ground building segment, but there wasn't a lot of flying. Michaels took a Northern Light Suplex over the top to the floor. The crowd seemed to be very much into Benoit, but as a heel when we came back from break. HBK seems to be the clear favorite to this audience.

The match moved very well, but it slowed after the commercial. Benoit was working the back for a long time, and the crowd was chanting HBK. HBK got the sleeper, but Benoit turned it into a back Suplex. The crowd was loud, which is a very good sign. They need to make Benoit into the sentimental favorite or turn him into the next Stone Cold. Those are the only two choices when it comes to Benoit being a possible winner at Mania. They did a long and fast near-fall sequence, which I dug. Michaels finally hit the elbow off the top and then went to the corner to deliver the Sweet Chin Music. He didn't hit it and Benoit went for a Crossface, but then HBK did some escapes, and Benoit got the Sharpshooter, which on HBK is a classic finish. There were boos when Michaels made the ropes.

After that, the crowd booed some more, which was weird. Benoit gave triple German Suplexes to Shawn, and then went to the top rope. HHH came out before he got there. Benoit was paying attention to HHH and HBK managed to get to his feet and when Benoit turned back to him, he gave him the Sweet Chin Music for the win. HHH then helped Michaels to his feet and gave him the Pedigree. Great TV match. Easily PPV caliber.

Austin came out and rode his ATV all around the ring. The crowd did the What? thing as Austin made the Triple Threat Match (that we've all known about for a month) official.

This was a good show, but kinda lightweight. They need Goldberg to be back on RAW to bring RAW fans into the match at Mania. The Benoit vs. Michaels match was my favorite, and I'd put it on the same level as the Benoit vs. Brock match from Dec. I'd say that the main event at Mania should be a strong three-way, especially with three guys who almost never give you bad matches.

NEWS
No major injuries from No Way Out. Brock was busted up a little, but it was nothing serious.

Almost everyone seems to think that the way they did the Brock vs. Eddy title switch was nearly perfect.

Thankfully, it was his own groin.

Scott Steiner has been hurt with a groin injury. Not sure how long he'll be out or how serious it is.

Linda "Shaniqua" Miles will be headed back down to OVW for a while. Tommy Dreamer will also be going, but doing so in more of a trainer role.

No Way Out Sell-Out Analysis
Why did this one sell out so big? There are a bunch of reasons and I thought I would spend a few minutes going over why (in place of writing up Piledriver, which I haven't found yet).

The surprise likely comes from the fact that San Francisco doesn't do big ratings when the city-by-city ratings analysis comes out every week. 2.7 seems to be about average for SF, which is the lowest for any of the major cities. So a sell-out is a surprise.

The guys who will be getting all the praise will be Eddy and Lesnar. This is both deserved and misleading. Brock has drawn fairly well, and Eddy has drawn in Southern Cali and Texas, including some really good crowds and ratings. This was their first big meeting, and it was bound to draw well, but there are a few other things that I will point out that point to other draws being bigger.

There wasn't a really large Mexican segment of the audience. Certainly less than the last RAW that came to San Jose. I'd say that it was maybe ten to fifteen percent and that the San Jose show was likely around twenty percent. Eddy draws well among Hispanics in general and among Mexicans best of all. There was probably a twenty percent African-American representation, who all seemed really into Rey and Eddy. It wasn't significantly different than the other Cow Palace shows I've been to of late.

The PPV factor is also big. PPVs of late have been doing OK, but there have been few legit sell-outs of this size even for PPVs. This PPV was pretty strong and it would have drawn very well anywhere, and I would have expected a sell-out if it had been a heavily Mexican audience. But like I said, it really wasn't.

The real reason is that San Francisco is starved for live wrestling. There is no local wrestling, though some Lucha comes around maybe twice or three times a year. There is All Pro Wrestling in Hayward, and Big Time Wrestling, but that hardly draws. WWE has been doing far more in San Jose than in San Francisco. They must have realized that they were ignoring San Francisco of late. There were a lot of 40 and 50-somethings at the show who would have grown up during the Ray Stevens and Pat Patterson eras or the early WrestleMania epoch. These fans have remained loyal, even if they don't watch the TV as much. There were a ton of older fans than there were at the San Jose show in December. I'd say there were nearly thirty five percent of the audience above the age of forty compared to a twenty percent level at the San Jose Show. Huge difference. These fans are also more into the wrestling, especially the ground stuff.

So, it was more the starvation than the quality of the top match. The real test will be the next time they bring the house show tour to San Francisco. If it draws big with Eddy on top, then maybe I'm wrong. If it doesn't do at least half-full, then it really is just the lack of regular live wrestling.

Well, that's another Falls Count Anywhere. Tune in Friday for more.

Chris Garcia