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Falls
Count Anywhere
04-16-07
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...I
know it's late and I shouldn't be calling you...
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Welcome to
Falls Count Anywhere! My name is Chris and I drank a lot of
free vino...
Since
I was at Sonoma this weekend, I didn’t get a chance
to watch much wrestling at all. I think I saw about 30 seconds
of an anthology short that dealt with a kid who wanted to
be a wrestler when he grew up and that was it. There was
no Super Amigos, no The Fighting Cholitas
like at Cinequest, but there were great films and members
of The State, so it all worked out.
NEWS
Things are quieting down after WrestleMania and the booking
has become less fresh. The road to Backlash is seen more
as a placeholder. Sadly, the Monday Night RAW show from
last week was weaker than any TV since January. I’m
hoping for a ramp up of action for Summerslam since they’ve
been talking about doing a giant angle that’ll bring
Trump-like attention, but it hasn’t been confirmed
yet. Some of the rumors say that it all started around the
time of the Kevin Federline angle late last year.
Even
bigger news is the fact that Hulk Hogan was supposed to
wrestle Jerry The King Lawler in Memphis. I said was
because it’s no longer happening. Instead, we’ll
be getting a match that was meant to happen at WrestleMania:
Hulk vs. The Big Show. Well, it’s actually Hulk vs.
Paul Wight since Paul can't use the Big Show name.
The
original plan was for the soon-to-be-gone Mid-South Coliseum
to host the last big night of wrestling honoring the Memphis
legends. The main event was going to be Lawler vs. Hogan.
The match was then moved from the site of Memphis’
most famous matches to the FedEx Center. They figured they
could sell-out the venue with Hogan and local legend Lawler
on top, and have guys like Grandmaster Sexay (aka
Lawler’s kid Brian Christopher) and The Moondogs on
the undercard. The show was even going to get some airtime
on VH-1.
After the word got out, Vince McMahon, still
angry over how things have gone down with Hogan over the
last few months, pulled all WWE talent, which was really
just Lawler, which really hurt the show. McMahon said that
if Hogan was on the show then there’d be no WWE presence.
That’s a shame, as if it had been the big final show
at the Mid-South, then Lawler should have been in it. The
show will go on and it’s a big deal with the Mayor
of Memphis being one of the co-hosts.
Pride’s last show under the Dream
Stage ownership ended with a lot of good vibes. The show
was solid and the matches seemed to take a back seat to
the actual goodbyes.
Lots
of talk about who will face the winner of Randy Couture
vs. Mirko Cro Cop. The name Emilianenko has been brought
up, but we’ve seen Fedor fight him and Couture would
make an excellent fight. That’s if the Pride/UFC folks
decide that it’s time to bring the champions together.
There’s a fair bit of depth in the UFC Heavyweight
division. Tim Sylvia is one guy who could get a shot since
it was Couture that beat him. I’d love to see Cro
Cop vs. Sylvia. That’d be a solid match.
The
UFC got an unlucky break and had Matt Serra beat Georges
St. Pierre. There were lots of plans on who was going to
face St. Pierre, but now Serra, who is less marketable,
has the belt. I’d expect the first defense by Serra
to be a rematch in hopes that St. Pierre will win it back.
I didn’t
get to see the TNA PPV, but I hear that Christopher Daniels
vs. Jerry Lynn was a very good match. TNA is still losing
money, and there’s always rumblings that something
big is about to happen regarding either new investors (who
will lose their money) or another project that will make
the bleeding stop.
One
thing that’s for sure is that Ring of Honor, where
about 1/3 of the current TNA roster worked, is doing very
well financially, which is slightly easier because they’ve
got the ECW in 1995 thing of having a strong fanbase of
hardcores who are willing to pay handily. They also have
a brilliant website that brings in a lot of money. They
live and die off of DVD sales.
Speaking of DVDs, if you get a chance to
buy them, get the Shimmer DVDs. They’re woman’s
wrestling and they’re actually very good. They feature
Team Blondage, Beth Phoenix (who is HOT!), Alison Danger,
Mercedes Martinez and more. Really good stuff.
Regular
RAW review coming on Thursday! Night all!
Talk
about today's column in the forums!
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