Falls Count Anywhere

03-29-07

There's a best beard award.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris and I can now announce that I am a Double Hugo Nominee!!!

NEWS
Pride was officially bought by the UFC's parent company which is planning on running it as a separate company from UFC, focusing on Japan and Asia instead of the US, though they are planning on doing some cross-promotion. I won't be the first to say that it ain't gonna work unless they get real TV in the US and Japan. They're talking to Fuji TV in Japan and no idea about the US. It should be a big deal shortly.

In sad news, the oldest Pro Wrestler, Abe Coleman, died on Wednesday. He was 101. He was the last wrestler from the Depression era and had his first match back when Strangler Lewis was still champion. He had a lot of stories, but was from that generation that didn't expose the business and so he very seldom went into the backstage stories.

RAW
The opening was The Coach getting stunnered by Austin. There was more to it, but really, once you get to see Coach take the Stunner, that's all it's about. Austin left and then his truck and Vince's limo had a moment where they honked at each other. That led to Vince wigging out and firing his driver. Interesting, though I'm not sure how much it added to the match on Sunday.

They did a great vignette about Edge being at WrestleMania IV and going on to become a champion. It was a great vignette that was the sort of thing they did for Shawn Michaels when he was running up to becoming World Champ at WrestleMania 12.

Torrie Wilson, Candice Michelle and Ashley beat Victoria, Jillian Hall and Melina in a match that was far beyond bowling shoe ugly. I mean it was just bad. They all tried, but none of them are any good except for Melina and she can't hold a six woman tag together all by herself. It ended in a victory roll for the win. I'm really worried about the Melina vs. Ashley match. And Where's Mickey James in all of this?

CM Punk is way over. That's right folks, CM Punk works! He's over and he was the only thing on ECW that anyone cared about. Oh yeah, he was also being buried. Luckily, here he got a win over Kenny Dykstra. He did his Double-Underhook Backbreaker and the Go 2 Sleep. This was a great way to get Punk over big, but they hurt Dykstra. This helped Punk a lot and I wouldn't be surprised to see him on RAW before too long as a contender. Yes, there's still a fair bit that people on booking have against him, but there's a lot of talent there and I'm betting they'll see that he's really over.

They had the Cutting Edge with all the folks in the Money in the Bank match. This was a good segment. They had Edge talk about how awesome he is, then Matt Hardy followed with the fact that he plans to leave Edge laying on his back like his ex-girlfriend. Nice touch. Booker did his King bit, and Finlay challenged Edge to a fight. Orton said that Finlay should calm down because Edge might duck out of the match if he's too scared. Mr. Kennedy said that he'd win, but Edge took the mic from him. The crowd didn't like that.

Edge said that Jeff Hardy never talks but does those goofy dances. Punk simply said that Edge was really good at running his mouth and wouldn't win. The Hardys and Punk cleared the ring. Everyone was really great in this one, but Edge was perfect. He's the top heel in the US right now and should be the Champ.

They officially announced Jim Ross for the Hall of Fame.

Mr. McMahon beat Bobby Lashley. This was a way of getting Lashley over big. He started by having McMahon leave the ring and Cade and Murdoch attack Lashley. He no sold the and tossed them out. That led to Masters and Nitro. Masters took a nice Half-nelson slam followed by Nitro getting the Running PowerSlam.

I forgot to mention that Joey Mercury was fired. Not sure on the details on that one.

Umaga came out and Lashley was holing his own until McMahon gave him a low blow from behind. That allowed Umaga to take over and give him the Butt Drop followed by the Samoan Drop which allowed McMahon to get the pin.

Kennedy and Orton beat Matt and Jeff Hardy. It was a decent match, but honestly, just a day later I've already forgotten all about it because of the following segment.

They played a package about Jim Ross going into the Hall of Fame. It was good, better than some of the other ones they've done so far this year, even better than Dusty's and Lawler's. Everyone said how they wanted JR calling they're big match. But the impressive thing was the crowd reaction after they played the piece. They gave JR a big standing O. It was long, it was proud and JR was obviously substantially moved and had to wipe some tears away. It was one of the most genuine reactions you'll ever see in wrestling. It was amazing to watch and it shows just how important a part of the WWE Jim Ross is.

There's also a problem. They've been so clueless as to the importance of JR over the years that they'll probably take him off again just so someone more handsome can take over. It won't work because we love JR too much, but he's not going to be around forever so they've gotta find someone who can become as loved.

The Great Khali beat Ric Flair via DQ. Khali was working over Flair and was about to give him the Tree Slam, but Carlito made the save. Carlito was about to get the Tree Slam, but Kane came out and ran Khali off. Meh.

Shawn Michaels did a great promo talking about how people have come and gone and he's always managed to stay and fight. Except when he destroyed his back. And lost his smile. Still, this was a great and serious promo from one of the best. They needed top notch promos from their Main Eventers and they got them for two of them. The Cena promo earlier was brilliantly delivered, but the Michaels promo was everything that a contender's promo should be.

The Main Event was Michaels and Cena against Undertaker and Batista. This was another good one. Lots of tension between partners with the worst of it being between Cena and Michaels. Undertaker and Batista did some blind tags. Great spot happened when Taker had Michaels up for a slam and Batista was about to DemonBomb Cena until UT tossed Michaels onto Batista and walked out. Michaels and Cena did some double teaming, including a Double Five Knuckle Shuffle. Then Michaels SuperKicked Cena and that was that. Very solid way to end the build up to RAW's portion of WrestleMania.

Good show.

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

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Chris Garcia