Falls Count Anywhere

03-01-05

But first...the whores!

SmackDown!
Well, this was an OK episode of SmackDown, though far from a great one. They built the episode around JBL having a party to celebrate being the longest reigning WWE champion in a decade. Well, Diesel did have a year-long run starting in 1994 and ending in 1995, so his portion of the reign that fell within the ten year time frame was less than JBL’s current reign. How’s that for justification?

The Bashems took on Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio for the tag team titles. I really thought they were going to turn Eddie here and have the Bashems win the title, but they did no such thing. Everyone worked hard and there are worse ideas than to have these two teams engage in an actual feud over the belts. Rey did his thing and so did Eddie. Eddie has been very open about why he wanted the belt taken off of him, but since then he’s been floundering. This was a good match and the team with Rey, though one of convenience, works. Rey hit the 619 and Eddie followed with the Frog Splash. Good stuff.

The did the Le Jetée version of the Cena vs. Angle match from No Way Out. It looked good in still format, too.

Orlando Jordan invited all the lovely ladies of SmackDown! to the ring for the JBL celebration.

Kurt Angle Invitational this week featured the contender mocking Kurt for losing to Cena. This was a bad idea, as he really let the guy have it after that, picking him up when he had a chance to pin him before finally getting him to tap to the ankle lock. Tazz came into the ring and asked him about the match with HBK. Kurt stood there for a moment and then left without saying anything.

Heidenreich did some poetry. It sucked.

As always, the party was lovely until the oaf got there.

JBL’s celebration was long, tired and felt like one of those old Memphis bits. This was obviously designed to get Cena over, but before he hit the ring, The Big Show came out to destroy the Cabinet, which he did. He then went for JBL, but the Cabinet came back and beat Big Show down. John Cena came out and the place went nuts. They’re doing a pretty good job getting Cena over with this here plotline. Jordan had presented Bradshaw with a painting, which meant that Cena was going to smash it over JBL’s head, which he did. Theodore R. Long then did a promo saying that as long as he was in charge, he’s going to keep making matches. This led to him announcing Cena/Show vs. JBL/Orlando Jordan. Not a good segment, but it did serve an OK purpose.

Chavito beat Funaki in a Cruiserweight title match. It wasn’t a bad little match, though it had no heat. After the match, Paul London attacked Chavo and tossed him out of the ring. He has Kerry Von Erich’s old boots!

Undertaker beat Luther Reigns and Mark Jindraik. This was a really bad match basically made to get the break between Luther and Jindraik so that they can feud. Undertaker used a Triangle Choke to win.

Teddy Long came out and said that it might be his last night as GM. Carlito joined him and then Linda McMahon came on screen and told Carlito to stop calling Titan Towers and that Theodore R. Long would remain the GM. This was a funny little bit and the crowd chanted for Teddy. Theodore then said that he was planning on making Carlito’s life a living hell. Good for him. I really liked this part and Teddy was great.

The big match to finish wasn’t very good, which was expected with who was in there, but it also didn’t advance much. This was where you give JBL the first blood, as he should have attacked Cena and bloodied him up, but instead they go for a boring match and have Cena pin Jordan. There were far better ways to do this.

NEWS
There is still talk of Akebono vs. The Big Show at Mania. This would be a fun "little" match, though it would suck. They’d get a lot of press in Japan for it and could probably parlay it into a Tokyo Dome sell-out for a rematch.

No word on Brock’s lawsuit. There was talk about some discussions between the two sides being scheduled, but I haven’t heard of anything concrete happening. The WWE isn’t in the best of positions for this one, and they know it. They’ll come up with some compromise.

I want to send some get well soons to Joyce Katz, the wife of Arnie “The Kingfish” Katz of Pro Wrestling Daily.

RAW
RAW this week was much like a lot of PPVs lately: a mixed bag to start, but ended with a great and hard fought match of top-notch quality.

As close as we're ever going to get...

The opener was HHH coming out in his wrestling garb saying that he was going to tear Batista apart. This must have tripped Hurricane’s Injustice Meter as he came out and got beat on, including a Pedigree on the ramp. This may have been an official match, though I don’t think the bell ever rang. This made HHH look mean.

Chris Benoit and Muhammad Hassan had their match that they set up last week. The match wasn’t good, as Hassan is awful in the ring. He does have a couple of cool moves, like the back suplex into the backbreaker. Hassan worked Chris’ back and Benoit did what he could. As usual, Daivari’s outside the ring antics were the best things about this match.

To the surprise of no one, Hulk Hogan will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Now all they need is to patch things up with Bruno Sanmartino, Bob Backlund, Ivan Koloff, Bret Hart and induct Pedro Morales and the WWE Hall of Fame might actually be thought of as something legit. They also announced that Steve Austin would be on Piper’s Pit at WrestleMania. That sounds like a recipe for fun.

The Masterpiece Chris Masters, fresh from mangling Steven Richards' face so bad he had to get surgery, beat some guy with the Full Nelson. I like the fact that the Full Nelson is back as a finisher; I just wish it wasn’t Chris Masters who was using it.

Jim Ross interviewed Batista in the ring. Batista complained that RAW had always been about HHH, which is fair, I think. The interview wasn’t great. Batista has great ring personality, but he’s nowhere near as effective on the mic. They should have also turned Flair and made him Batista’s manager, but they could still find someone to manage him. Flair and HHH came out and they circled the ring. Batista caught Flair and beat hima bit, then he challenged HHH to come in and fight. HHH refused. They did this four times and HHH never wanted anything to do with Batista. Great way to get over that HHH is a cowardly heel not wanting to face Batista. This was the highlight of the Batista turn so far.

Chris Jericho beat Maven. Maven is highly not over. Jericho took the mic and said that he wanted a match to make an impact at Mania. He then muttered something about six guys and a ladder. I’m intrigued.

They showed the newest WrestleMania commercial with John Cena and JBL doing the A Few Good Men scene on the stand. JBL came off so great in this. He did a solid job playing the Jack role. I was most impressed.

Christy showed off her new Playboy cover. Trish came out and the King said ‘She wants to get a closer look at the new cover’ in a delicious double entendre. She was about to spraypaint the cover when Christy slapped her. Trish came back and laid out Christy with a Chick Kick that broke her shoes. Trish then spraypainted SLUT across her back, proving that Trish is now a part of the Trish World Order.

Nice pants.

Superstar Billy Graham did a segment with Randy Orton saying that he should do something special and memorable. Randy then took a look at SmackDown! Magazine with the Undertaker on the cover. Poor Orton. From heir apparent to HHH to getting fed to the Undertaker in less than a year. Unless they give him the big win over UT. Nah, it’ll never happen.

Shawn Michaels and Edge had a match that was bloody, brutal and just plain good. A decent amount of heat here too. They did a great streetfight, with garbage can lid shots, solid chairshots, and a Singapore Cane. Michales bled all over the place in this one. Michaels brought out a ladder and the first few times he tried to use it, it was turned on him and he ended up taking a drop toe hold into the ladder. So much blood. This was a Come as You Are match, so Michaels was wearing jeans and both guys were wearing heavy boots. Michaels got the win with the Sweet Chin Music, and after the match…well, that’s when Kurt Angle made his appearance.

Kurt gave Shawn an overhead suplex, a few punches and the Angle Slam. I can’t remember the last time Angle was on RAW. Was he ever on RAW? This was a great way to set up the match between the two of them and I’m so excited. The crowd was very into that finish.

That’s all for this week, since I’ll be at Cinequest with my movie (The Chick Magnet) and writing reviews of all that which hits the screen. I’ll do a double on Monday!

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Chris Garcia