Falls Count Anywhere

03-30-04

I've got a Hidden Mickey in my pants.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris and I'm completely overtaken by www.hiddenmickeys.com.

RAW
They open by going back over the RAW and SmackDown! events, showing the trades and how Angle is now the GM. Nice little thing that got everyone up to speed.

Flair and Batista and Orton come out for the first interview. Flair was on as usual, but when he started talking about Orton, the crowd got into booing Randy. It's proof that the Mick Foley thing has been working. Orton did a bit of an interview just one week after having his tonsils out. Mick came out and made the Falls Count Anywhere, No DQ, No Evolution match for Backlash. Good segment.

Nidia and Molly wrestled a match where Nidia showed off her lack of skill and bounty of boobs. The bounteous one took a nasty toss into the post. Early on, it felt like Molly had been watching a lot of old Harley Race matches from the mid-1980s. She beat on Nidia for a while, leading up to Nidia getting a strong comeback and doing a nice Northern Lights Suplex. Nidia went for a bulldog, Molly's wig came off and Nidia got a roll-up for the win. Short, but well-made match.

They reviewed Edge returning and getting drafted by RAW. He's going to be huge. They announced that Kane and Edge will meet at Backlash in Edge's first match back. This should be interesting.

The Hurricane was announced, but before he got down the ramp, HHH jumped him, apparently in reference to the locker room's reaction to HHH's being drawn by SmackDown!. HHH came out and stroked his ego, making everyone else look minor league in comparison. He called out Bischoff to give him the Title Match at Backlash against Benoit. Instead of changing it from Michaels vs. Benoit, he made it another three-way between Benoit, Michaels and HHH in the Final Encounter. HHH seemed happy with the result.

This is part of our own Legacy of Hope.

Shelton Benjamin encountered Evolution, who jumped him in response to his laughing at HHH last week. I smell a big push coming!

Lance Storm took on Rhyno after complaining about not being picked up by SmackDown!. It was a flash match, with Rhyno getting the big fast win. It was a nice way to make up for his loss on the draft show. It looks like Lance Storm is now a whiny heel while Rhyno is now the 'get things done' tweener.

Coach talked to Bisch about Tajiri. Bischoff took Coach to heart and said that the Japanese Buzzsaw would have to face Kane in a No DQ match. Tajiri was great in this segment. His facials have always been hilarious.

The USO gave the Legacy of Hope award to the WWE. Nice touch. The WWE always plays up these awards, which makes them seem arrogant, but they are such an isolated industry that if they didn't do it, no one would ever know.

Benoit and Michaels took on Flairtista with Bischoff's protégé Johnny Spade, now known as Johnny Nitro, as ref. It was good, and maybe it was just me, but it seemed as if they were pulled in a bit to make sure no one got hurt early. There were quite a few times before the commercial break where it looked like they reigned in the action. It's nice to see them thinking this way, but there's still that highspot cravin' crowd that wasn't totally into this match at first. After Michaels played face in peril for a while, Benoit came in and picked things up. I'll say this about Batista, he takes a sweet back suplex. Benoit gets the pin on Flair, but Nitro says that Flair wasn't the legal man. They keep going but Nitro gets hit by Michaels for the DQ. A twisty finish to a good, but not quite great, match.

Trish was on The Highlight Reel and did a good heel chick promo on Jericho. Chris just stood and took it until it was his turn to rip into Trish, eventually calling her a FILTHY, DIRTY, DISGUSTING, BRUTAL, BOTTOMFEEDING TRASHBAG HO!!!. I liked this segment.

Tajiri took on Kane in a match to punish Tajiri for blowing mist in Coach's face earlier. Tajiri put up a noble fight, but Kane beat him up until Tajiri blew mist and got Kane counted out. Tajiri got a chokeslam after the match Edge charged and speared Kane to add fire to their match at Backlash.

Benoit gave Shelton a pep talk backstage that may have been his best mic work in years. Everyone gave Shelton props and gave him a push towards the ring. Nice touch. Flair gave HHH a similar talk.

Shelton and HHH had a really fun little match that started with really strong ground work. I believe that Shelton is the fastest wrestler in the WWE, and his mat stuff shows it. There was a sweet pair of segments where Shelton escaped a pedigree and HHH said that he was 'this close.' Shelton then got a backslide for two and did the same thing.

I just saved a lot of money with Geico.

Shelton showed so much charisma in this match, and HHH was right there helping him by working really hard to get him over. HHH caught one of Shelton's kicks, but he then turned it into a huge spinning kick. The guy is just flat out athletic. Flair comes out, and Benoit comes to neutralize Flair's influence.

After the break, HHH is in control, working Benjamin into the post a couple of times. They work really hard and the crowd starts to come into it more with great near falls. Benjamin clotheslines HHH over the top rope, then catches him with a clothesline off the apron. This match was more and more reminding me of All Japan matches with Kobashi vs. Steve Williams. Flair punched Benjamin, which led to Benoit chasing him around. HHH watched out for Flair, which allowed Shelton to hit the Avalanche, or Stinger Splash, on HHH, then he rolled him up for a three count.

OH YEAH!!!!!

They didn't make Shelton into a major star, but in one night, they did more to make Shelton a serious contender than they have for almost any new guy in years. Will they bury Shelton in the coming weeks? I actually doubt it, as they can now afford to use him as a face and build him up to new heights. They have a lot of faces, but there is never a bad time to give a young guy who can work his ass off a push.

I'd say the show as a whole was really solid, told stories, and set up the PPV.

NEWS
Well, no one died, save for Peter Ustinov, and that's good. There have been increased talks between Goldberg and the WWE. The idea at the moment seems to be that Goldberg may actually want to sit on the shelf for a while to increase his value for a comeback. There is also talk that an agreement has been made and that they are just sitting on it until the time is right. I think having Goldberg comeback and do the "Brock is a coward" thing might just work.

Stone Cold Steve Austin was involved in an incident over the weekend. The cops were called in for a domestic dispute between Austin and his (I believe ex-) girlfriend. No charges were filed, but apparently, he pushed her down at some point. This has happened before with Austin, most notably during his previous marriage to Debra.

Heyman is being considered for the main heels manager role that had once been held by the likes of Fred Blassie and Bobby Heenan. I think that's a great idea, as he is still one of the elite talkers of all time.

While RAW did that huge rating, SmackDown! only managed a 3.3. Tough break.

There are a few new WWE DVDs expected. There's the Rise and Fall of ECW, which is going to be done like the Monday Night Wars DVDs, which is something of a shame as there are so many great matches that they just should have put out a greatest hits DVD. I guess there's still time. Also, a Chris Benoit DVD and something about the Four Horsemen. Flair is the big seller right now, so it should do good business.

There is talk that the Shelton Benjamin win over HHH was a shocker to everyone who didn't know the booking ahead of time. The boys were watching the match backstage and apparently there was a big pop when Shelton got the pin. This may be one of many things that HHH is going to be trying to improve his standing with the folks backstage.

FlashBack!
Perhaps the WWF match of 1992 took place in England. The WWF held SummerSlam 92 in Wembley Stadium in front of a huge crowd. The atmosphere of the event was incredible, and the reason for the big number was one man: the late Davey Boy Smith, aka The British Bulldog.

Davey Boy was a huge star in his native Britain. He would continue to be a big star there through the late 1990s. He would get huge pops, and his presence could bring in a crowd. In 1992, he was still being thought of as a possible future WWF champion, even though the whole steroid thing was causing serious troubles for big men in the WWF at the time. There's no question that The Bulldog was on the juice, but he was a top-level performer as well. The match with Bret Hart, his brother-in-law, was set for the big WWF show in August.

Shouldn't that be SummerSlamme?

Coming out, The Bulldog had Lennox Lewis with him, which pretty much instantly made him the most over face in the world for the night. The Bulldog and Bret got into a little shoving match to begin, showing that this wasn't going to be a nice and tidy match, teasing that one of the two of them would be going heel. The work a very solid match, with all sorts of spots that we don't seen much anymore. I remember, even then as a young mark, thinking that Vince McMahon was an idiot for calling an inverted Atomic Drop a Reverse Piledriver. Bad announcing has always been a pet peeve.

Bret got to do a bunch of heel work, which really was always his strong suit. (He proved that he was a great heel again with his 1997 run at Steve Austin.) The match progressed very nicely, especially after the first ten minutes. Bret hit his awesome bulldog, and a bit later, Bulldog went for a roll-up, but Bret grabbed the rope and sent Davey Boy flying out to the floor. Bret followed up with an amazing move.

Bret did the pescado over the top rope to the outside, but it looked like he overshot Bulldog. Bret puts his arm out and catches Bulldog around the chin, bringing him down across his back. It looked like Randy Orton's across the back neckbreaker, only flying from over the top rope. I can't tell you exactly how awesome and brutal it looked. I remember rewatching the match and wondering how Bulldog was still managing to wrestle. (The answer turned out to be heavy daily doses of painkillers and booze)

The boys trade finishers for a while, each man kicking out of each one. Finally, Bret goes for a Sunset Flip, but Davey Boy sits down and gets the pin on Bret for the win and the IC title. The places goes ape for the finish. Seriously, there are people who were there and have been to hundreds of historic wrestling events who claim it was the greatest pop ever.

Bret went on to win the World title from Ric Flair a couple of months later. Bulldog held the belt until he dropped it to Shawn Michaels and then was fired during the height of the steroid witch hunts. HE would head to WCW, then back to the WWF. He would make that same trip a couple of more times. He eventually wound up too injured to work and settled into a retirement that was interrupted by his death in 2002.

That's all for today. On Friday, another look at the news and view of the wrestling blues.

Chris Garcia