Falls Count Anywhere

04-13-04

Manhandled for your protection.

Welcome to Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris and Irish need apply.

RAW
They opened the show by reviewing Shelton's count out win over HHH last week. I really think they should have given Shelton the count out win first, then had Shelton do the pinfall win. That would have given us the best story. But they are trying to keep HHH happy while still elevating Shelton.

Shelton did a great opening interview with Bischoff, talking about the stitches he got and how Bisch did nothing but watch while he was getting beat. Great line to Johnny Nitro: "You say one more thing to me, and I'm gonna use that bat as an enema." Foley, Benoit (who got a good pop) and Michaels (who got a better pop) came in to hype the eight man match that will be the main event.

Mick came out to the ring with the barbed wire bat. He then went on to do an Elmer Fudd imitation. He named the bat Barbie. How sweet. He did a fine promo, as he always does, and he worked in a cheap pop towards Chicago. They also sold out the arena, supposedly, which is really good news. Mick announced that Mick Foley won't be wrestling at Backlash, but that Cactus Jack will be. Dave Meltzer said that they should have done that last week, but I think it doesn't matter as long as they do it. Randy Orton came to hit Mick with the chair, but Mick chased him off with Barbie.

Kane took on…Grandmaster Sexay!!! Brian Christopher (Lawler) came back to take on Kane. I'm not even sure how long it's been since he was on RAW. I wanna say it's been more than two years. This one surprised me, though I know that they had talked a while back. It was a basic Kane-type squash, though it seemed like no one recognized Brian. Still, it was good to see Sexay back, as he had some good matches as a cruiserweight back in the late 1990s. And Too Cool was a fun little tag team.

Just drawn that way...

Trish was backstage talking with the make-up lady. Eugene came around and they had him call her a slut. Regal came and took him away. I almost thought that they were gonna start the old George Steele / Elizabeth angle from 1986. Christian came in and they talked and ended with a hilarious embrace with Trish saying 'I'm not a slut' in a hilariously school girly way.

The Coach came out with a Ninja. I half-thought they had brought back Al Snow as Shinobi. They had Tajiri take on Coach's Five Star Ninja. What a great Japanese name. If Tajiri won, he got Coach. My guess at first was the Ninja would turn out to be Kenzo Suzuki, but I was not 100% on that. They had a fun little match with the two of them doing all sorts of kicks and trading fun moves. Tajiri got the win, and Coach was not happy. They then unmasked the Five Star Ninja as…Al Snow!!! You make a joke and it comes true.

They did a great job of building the eight-man tag as something important. This will only help the ratings, or maybe this is what's been helping the ratings of late.

Flair heads into the Bischoffice to demand a match with Shelton at Backlash, and Shelton jumps him outside the door and gives him a savage beating. My God it was brutal. He kept hammering him with kicks while he was down. I think they are gonna get him over, I really do, as long as they keep him from being jobbed out.

They went over the triple threat match and then had a HHH promo. It was done as an old school ECW extreme close-up that pulled back so that he could use his body language, which actually helps his interviews a ton. He is so intense.

Chris Jericho comes out to a big pop. They mentioned that the Rosemont Horizon is where Jericho first debuted in the WWF back August of 1999. He did a weird acronym-filled promo to open his segment, and he mentioned DDP. Jericho: "It's clear that this is not the first time that Trish has gotten action from two men at the exact same time."

The Highlight reel featured footage of Trish acting like a dog for Mr. McMahon with dog barking effects put over. It didn't get as much reaction as it should have. Chris then brought out Lita. She comes out, which leads to Trish coming to jump her from behind, which is a sentence that I really wanna say about a completely different situation.

They started the Lita vs. Trish match after the commercials and it was pretty solid as these know each other pretty well. Jericho stayed out with Lita and this brought Christian out to play with them. Trish was wearing an outfit that was far too similar to Lita's. They need to watch it on these things. Then again, when Super Delfin wore his Jushin Liger mask during a Super J Cup, the people loved it. Lita is hot. Trish is white hot. Christian had a snakeskin print shirt on. I approve. They sorta blew a Stratusfaction into a back suplex spot, but that happens. The crowd is getting into chanting against Christian, which is good. Trish can take a nice bump through the ropes, and Lita did a nice dive onto her from inside the ring. Christian then tossed Lita backwards into the rail in a sick sick bump. Christain and Jericho then brawled a bit, with Jericho hitting the CLB with a nice enzugiri. When Jericho went to give Trish the Walls of Jericho, he got a huge pop. They broke it up, but they'll pay it out at Backlash. Nice building segment.

La Resistance did a bit with Eugene. They may get him over yet, but they need to have him do more things that help mock the heels successfully. Rob Conway gave a little promo that actually showed some talent. Regal tried to convince Eugene that he was liked by the Frenchmen, or was it the Canadians?

Johnny Nitro, who came out to the old theme from Eric Bischoff's Monday Night Nitro and who earned the JR statement of the night where he said that Nitro had a Johnny Damon haircut, called out Edge and he told him all about the fact that he would suspend him if he used his cast as a weapon. Edge said that he needed Nitro to send a message to Bisch and he speared him. Nice to see Johnny get manhandled.

Sylvan and Hurricane faced off in a match that was action packed and got decent heat, though it wasn't really good since Eugene came out and provided the distraction that allowed Hurricane to hit his finisher for the win. Eugene looked very sad when Grenier tore up his stuffed Easter bunny. So sad.

Shawn Michaels did a promo much like the HHH promo from earlier. It was good, but not quite as intense. Still, Shawn can talk.

They did the SmackDown! Rebound where they did their best to get John Bradshaw Layfield over. They'll do it. I'm almost certain of it. Still, they won't do a big buyrate, but better than expected.

They reviewed Mick Foley's Hardcore Hayday. Man, this was a great package. They showed all sorts of his WWF stunts and IWA Japan matches. He was the greatest brawler of all time. Maybe Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody come close, but he was certainly the craziest bump taker ever. Good stuff.

Benoit did his promo in the style of HHH and it was one of his best. He's not a great talker, but he can get over the importance of a title.

Benoit came out and HOLY CRAP, Lilian Garcia is HOT tonight!!! Shelton then came out with music that would be better suited to a heel. Michaels got a really big pop and he was followed by Foley, who kept the heat going. If they really want to get over the importance of the Title, Benoit should always come out last. Evolution came out as a unit, which is actually a good idea as it makes it seem like the unit is the important thing and not the individual. They are the Horsemen of the New Century.

Who is the best there is?

Benjamin jawed with his team trying to get to be the one who started. Michaels and Flair started out working, with Michaels tossing Flair down and doing the Fargo Strut and the Woooo! Nice touch. Flair then took a shot and did the Flair Flop. The crowd was really really hot. I mean, they haven't gotten reactions like this for full matches in months. Foley and Flair worked together a bit. Then Benoit came in. They tagged in HHH and Benoit and Trips went at it and got huge heat. Shelton cheap-shotted HHH, which was a nice touch. They are really making him an urban Steve Austin. HHH fell after delivering the High Knee. I remember when his offense was entirely knee-based. Benoit seemed to miss a few cues in the middle right before the commercial. That's not normal for Chris. Michaels hit a big Plancha onto three of Evolution. Sweet.

Benoit and Flair took it to each other, followed by Mick giving us shades of Cactus Jack. Shelton then came off the top with a HUGE clothesline on Flair, and HHH had to make the save. The Flair took a high back body drop, but HHH low-bridged him and sent him to the outside where they sent him into the steps. Flair gave the knee to Shelton's stitches. Randy came in and worked Shelton over. Shelton sold brilliantly. They are really working hard to get him over and I think they will.

The crowd got into Benjamin's comeback against HHH, but Hunter hit the Arn Anderson Spinebuster for a two count that was broken up by Benoit. Trips went for the Abdominal Stretch and the crowd started clapping for Shelton. This is already a great match. Shelton worked with Flair for a while and made a strong comeback. They went back and forth for a while and they gave us a good preview of what they are gonna give us on Sunday. Shelton hit is DragonWhip on Batista. I love that move.

Orton and Michaels worked together for a bit. Michaels did his traditional kip-up, but Batista was waiting to clothesline him. Orton was about to pin Michaels and Benoit hit him with the Headbutt off the top. Mick came in and backdropped HHH to the outside. The crowd was wild at this point. Everyone started fighting outside except for Michaels and Orton and Michaels got the Sweet Chin Music on Randy to get the win. Brilliant!

This was the show they needed to build to the PPV. The Main Event was great, there was very little that I wouldn't want to watch. It looks good going into Sunday.

NEWS
The Austin situation is really over the bookings that Austin might be able to get outside of the WWE and his wanting the right to use the name. The Rock bought his name from Vince, which was a really big deal. The WWE should have never given him the name as they will probably not be able to re-sign him, unless Be Cool bombs.

FlashBack!
I've seen thousand of matches in my lifetime. I can think of hundreds of them off the top of my head, and most of them are good but far from great. Then there are those that suck so hard that you can't forget. I've written about most of the truly terrible, but there's one that comes to mind fast. It was a match between Hulk Hogan and Big Sexy Kevin Nash for the WCW World's Heavyweight Championship. It wasn't so much for the match itself, but for the fact that you can also chart the fall of WCW to this one moment.

You see, Hulk Hogan had Eric Bischoff in his pocket. He had done the job to Bill Goldberg while Goldberg was on his incredibly hot winning streak. Goldberg was the focus of the promotion and they were doing great. The decision to get the belt off of Goldberg and back to Hogan was made, but to have Hogan take the win back so soon would be a bad call as they could build towards that match for months. The decided recipient of Goldberg's first loss was Kevin Nash. Nash beat Goldberg at Starrcade, and held it for a little while until a huge match on Nitro was built with Nash taking on Hogan. Most thought that this would be where Hulk gave Nash the rub and did the job for him, making him the biggest star in the world and giving him a solid win to build to the next PPV main event, likely against Goldberg.

What do you mean it's my fault?

Of course, this didn't happen.

The match was built and had a huge amount of heat going into the match. The crowd was so big, I think it was about 30,000 at the Georgia Dome, and they were totally into the boys. The guys were about to tie up, when Hogan tapped Nash in the chest and he went down like he had been shot. The crowd died with that move. To make matters worse, Goldberg didn't work on the show since they did some sort of arrest angle with the late Miss Elizabeth.

They didn't do much big business in the city after that. This moment is irrefutable proof that a certain action can kill a city, and in this case, a promotion. Atlanta still isn't the city it was for wrestling in the mid-1990s. or even the 1980s. Hogan, who was always getting things done his way, showed that that was what was killing WCW.

That's another one. More later, homes.

Chris Garcia