Falls Count Anywhere

04-23-07

I loved that rubber tree plant.

UFC 70 Delivers a Shock
Mirko Cro Cop is considered one of the three best heavyweight fighters in the world along with Fedor Emelianenko and Randy Couture. Couture has lost and Emelianenko has lost only once, but Cro Cop has been stopped a couple of times. This was one of those times.

Even though he’s still the most feared man in MMA, with the possible exception of Emelianenko, he was beaten by a guy who was considered by most to not be on the same level. Gabriel Gonzaga is a tough guy, but he’s not considered one of the top five. Now he’s gotta be. The plan was for Cro Cop to win, likely handily, and then face Randy Couture. That shot will now go to Gonzaga.

Here’s the problem with shootfighting: It’s a shoot. Either guy can win. The idea of putting a guy in against the champ without a win is probably a bad one, but it’s the only way to preserve the big name match-ups. Who have we seen lose of late when they were supposed to win? Couture wasn’t supposed to beat Tim Sylvia. Serra wasn’t supposed to beat St. Pierre. These both effected big match-ups, and this one basically destroyed the PRIDE myth (which I’m still not convinced was a myth) and set Cro Cop further back than any loss he’s ever taken. He lost to Kevin Randleman in a very similar fashion. He was kicked in the head. This will probably mean we get to see two more fights from Cro Cop vs. smaller names before he either gets a shot or goes elsewhere. He may as well go elsewhere because his name is shot if loses again.

A Little News
Randy Orton’s in hot water again. Apparently he trashed a hotel room on the European tour and was sent home. It’s just another hit to his already shaky reputation. The guy’s been sent home from a couple of tours, suspended for drug use (or it might have been ‘roids, we’re not sure) and he’s caused at least two divas to quit the promotion. He’s not fired, but there’s no knowing what the WWE will do with him. TNA would love to get him, though the odds of him going that route are pretty slim and there are a couple of folks over there who aren’t fans of him.

We learned from this week's podcast that Italy loves him. That's Super Crazy.

SuperCrazy appears to have injured himself on the European tour. No word on the severity.

Mirko Cro Cop might have torn his MCL when he was KOed by Gonzaga. He was up and walking with a limp the next day. He’s also said he won’t retire because of the loss.

Raw did a 3.7 last week. Decent number. Impact did a 1.1, also OK, but it’s not showing much growth over time and that’s dangerous.

SmackDown! Opening
I didn’t watch all of SmackDown!, but I saw the opening 45 minutes or so. It wasn’t a bad show, a little slow, but whenever you get Finlay, Benoit, The Hardys, Helms and Chavito, you’ve got a good time.

We started off with Batista, who got a strong reaction. There’s a lot of questioning being done about Batista right now. I’m not a big fan of his, true, but he’s been getting a lot of reaction lately, and it’s mostly positive. Here, he took on Fit Finlay, who is the best 48 year old wrestling today. Finlay acted like he had something in his eye. That’s always the way, isn’t it? Finlay then attacked Batista after he fell for it. That’s a nice touch. Batista started to come back, but Kennedy ran in and attacked Batista, so Big Dave got his win. Finlay joined in the beatdown.

Jillian Hall sang badly. No gimmick is weaker than the one they’ve stuck the boobilicious Ms. Hall with. Speaking of that, where’s Beth Phoenix? I know she’s still in Ohio Valley, but why isn’t the hot chick on the main roster again?

The Hardys are a great team and they added Chris Benoit to take on Chavito, Gregory Helms and MVP. This wasn’t a bad match at all. Jeff missed a corkscrew senton, which was the early highlight. They went back and forth for a while, and with these guys teaming, it was a solid match that got a fair amount of time. I am changing my mind on MVP. He’s much better than I gave him credit for and he was good in the match. Matt Hardy’s a star and they are making up for the fact that they’re keeping him down by giving the Hardys a really big push. The work here was solid, though there wasn’t a lot to forward the important storylines in the match.

That was all I saw. It started a little slow, but it built to a good match. I’m told that the rest of the show was pretty good.

TNA Impact
I don’t watch as much TNA as I should, but I caught this episode and thought that it was really good.

Watch it.

As much as I hate to admit it, TNA used Jeff Jarrett absolutely correctly and he came out to a really strong face reaction after his turn at the Lockdown PPV, He did a promo explaining his face turn and then Kurt Angle came out. He said that he trusted Jarrett and that he should have let Angle get the pin instead of Sting. Nice way to keep Kurt as a mid-way tweener character instead of a straight face (which Kurt is boring as) or a regular heel (which TNA doesn’t understand how to book).

Sting came out and said that he and Jarrett had been wrestling for 20 years and Kurt had barely been wrestling for eight. He said that without guys laying the path for him, Kurt would have been a Gold Medalist gym teacher. That was brilliant. They made Kurt vs. Sting for this week’s show, which might be worth watching.

Team Cage watched and laughed at the Team Angle in-fighting. Christian blamed the loss on Abyss. A.J. Styles proved that he can be funny when he asked Abyss if he had ‘hemorrhoids or something’.

Christopher Daniels is a great wrestler. The best in TNA for my money (though both Joe and Kurt have matches that are better, no one is nearly as consistant). He defeated Rhino, AJ and Samoa Joe in a four-way match. Joe worked tight on my man Daniels and Rhino had the advantage on AJ. Lots of back and forth, but this wasn’t given the required time to build a real match (it got somewhere around 5 minutes) and it ended with Rhino getting hit with a baseball bat by Daniels to give The Fallen Angel the win. Good short stuff, would have liked to have gone two or three times as long.

Robert Roode beat Chris Harris, who is obviously spinning his wheels. Miss Jackie and Gail Kim brawled before the match got going, which is good. These two are better than any Diva in the WWE with the exception of Victoria. Ms. Brooks and Eric Young were watching from ringside.

This was a pretty good match with lots going on. It didn’t get as much time as it could have either. Harris was about to get the pin following the Catatonic, but Ms. Brooks pulled the ref out. Roode hit Harris with a pair of handcuffs to get the win. Not a great match, but the overlapping storylines were strong. I really think Harris needs to get back into the tag team ranks.

Team 3D beat Christian Cage and Abyss. The point to this match was to finish the Abyss face turn, which I would have said was a terrible idea but now I see that it’s good stuff. The match was solid too. Christian and The Dudleys have worked together for years and it showed here in all the timing. The spots were clear and everything flowed. The match was another back and forth, give and take, which the Dudleys have always been good at. They had the various tag teams watching from ringside.

The finish was good stuff as Cage was on the top rope and Abyss had Dvon on his back, but Dvon tossed him into the corner and that knocked Christian to the floor. The 3D on Abyss then ended the match, but the angle was just starting.

Cage was raving mad and Jim Mitchell was yelling at Abyss too. Abyss was about to give Christian Shock Treatment when Mitchell ended up distracting him with his yelling. Abyss choked Mitchell, which cause Steiner and Tomko to come out with Styles. Abyss tossed them all out and then gave Mitchell the Black Hole Slam! Awesome! Abyss went to get tacks, but the guys stopped him and Cage hit him with a chair. Abyss bled a lot and it was perfect. He took more shots, including a conchairto and a barbed-wire bat shot. Wild ending.

It was easily the best episode of TNA I’ve seen in ages, and it was nearly as good as the way the WWE built to WrestleMania!

That’s all for today. More on Thursday!

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Chris Garcia