Falls Count Anywhere

02-22-07

I waxed it myself.

A Brief No Way Out Note
If you get the chance to watch No Way Out, just watch the opener between Benoit and Johnny Nitro and then skip to the main event. There’s nothing worth talking about anywhere in between. That is all.

Sad News
It was announced yesterday that Mike Awesome, former ECW champion and FMW regular in the 1990s, committed suicide at the age of 42. Awesome was a great character at times, and could have been a huge star if he wasn’t injury prone. He had his moments in the ring, but the most memorable points of his career were him almost breaking JT Smith’s back delivering a tope and his dropping the ECW title to TAZ who was a WWF wrestler at the time.

I loved his run as Big Titan in Japan. He teamed mostly with Horace Boulder, Hulk Hogan’s nephew. He had some good brawls and he was an agile big guy. I met him twice, once at an ECW event and once before a WCW show. He was really nice.

RAW
RAW was an interesting show this week. I’m starting to get into a groove and I thought that the way they played things this week made a fair bit of sense and tried to put some real attention to the main events at WrestleMania.

Gee, Mr. Luth-or...

Vince came out and there was a barber shop set up by the entry. That was a nice touch. Vince talked about all the potential hairstyles he could give to Trump and they showed graphics of each. It was really funny the way they did it and the crowd was into it, too. Vince announced that Umaga was his man to take on whoever Trump will announce next week. I’m still betting Lashley.

Umaga, fresh off the announcement, beat Jeff Hardy for the IC title. It wasn’t a bad match either. It was pretty much a squash with a nice spot where Hardy ran the rails outside and ended up taking a jab to the throat from the Big Man. Umaga looks unstoppable, but he really doesn’t need the IC belt because he’s enough of a monster.

The new Mick Foley autobiography had a commercial. He made the point that Winston Churchill had three autobios and he never beat anybody! Good point. Can’t wait to read it.

Ric Flair and Carlito teamed to take on Cade and Murdoch. I’m not sure why they’re teaming, but they are. They had an OK match, though nothing to write home about. Carltio got to play Face in Peril and make the hot tag to Flair. You know, for a guy who’s old and has lost so often, Flair still gets tremendous heat for these things. Carlito came in after Flair hit did some chops and a clipblock and the Fargo Strut and then used the BackPack for the pin. I wanna know what they’re doing with this one.

RVD and Edge fought in a match to determine which of them would be going to the Money in the Bank match at Mania. If you’ve been following things, RVD is about to leave, probably for TNA where they can waste him just like they did Angle and Christian and Sting and everybody else they’ve got their hands on except for Samoa Joe.

This was a fun match with lots of good brawling and Edge busted a nice PowerSlam out of an RVD Rolling Thunder. RVD did the thing where he drapes the guy across the barrier and does the spinning legdrop. It was a good match and RVD got a lot of offense in, which is a positive. They seem to have given up having him re-sign, but the reaction he got from the crowd was very strong. It ended with an Edge Spear giving him the win in a strong match. Edge doesn’t need to win the Money in the Bank, but my guess is they’ll have him take it.

Already a winner to us.

Melina looked hotter than any other woman in the Fed when she came out for her match with Mickie James. She looked like a woman about ready to win the title. The two of them had a fairly OK woman’s match. The division’s match quality has gone downhill since Trish left and since they stopped treating Victoria like a bad ass.

Mickie went for the Mickiecarana and ended up falling off and getting covered by Melina for the win and the title. Mickie was talking with Maria and Candice after the match and Todd Grisham tried to get a word about the loss and Mickie slapped him for his trouble. Hmmmm…maybe she’s turning psycho again!

The Great Khali beat The Highlanders. After the match, he said he wanted better competition.

John Cena and Randy Orton had a fine match as the Main Event. Orton looked good, especially hitting the hanging DDT and the Garvin Stomp. Orton escaped the Fu and got some more offense on Cena, but couldn’t get the RKO on Cena. Cena was about to get the FU on Orton, but Edge speared him for the DQ. Even with that ending the match was worth it. Michaels saved the day and though it looked like he was about to wail on Cena, he didn’t.

Good episode.

WSX’s show was pulled for this week because of the use of a fireball. Some are saying they simply want to see if something else would get better ratings in the time slot. We’ll see.

That’s all for this week. More on Monday!!!

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Chris Garcia