Falls Count Anywhere

04-26-07

It's Trollfest 2007!

RAW
If you look up the definition of one-match show, you’ll see a note mentioning this week’s RAW. If you look up successful one-match-shows, you’ll see this week’s RAW at the head of that pack. The entire show from London was built around the Shawn Michaels vs. John Cena rematch and other than the Flair vs. Vader Starrcade, I can’t think of a show that only had one match to build around that did it half as well.

They used Robbie Brookside to put over Shane and company. They first announced that it was a 2-on-1 handicap match with Shane teaming with Umaga. Umaga destroyed Robbie and that brought out Vince when Shane said it was a 3-on-1. Vince made the cover. Not the best thing ever, but I’ve always liked Brookside.

They showed a great Cena-Michaels package, which was the first step towards the incredible main event.

Trevor Murdoch beat Matt Hardy. This is just ridiculous. They need to stop jobbing Matt and Jeff out. I get it, they’re stronger as a team so when they do jobs, they’re only building the tension for the tag matches, but please, that doesn’t work any more. They need to keep these guys strong and give them big wins because these are two guys that are seriously over. Murdoch was going for something along the lines of a Canadian Destroyer, but it didn’t happen and Matt looked injured afterwards from live reports.

Melina beat Maria. I gotta say, Maria tries. She even did a spinning head scissors that looked OK. Melina then did the thing where she drives the other girl’s head into the canvas for the win. I have to say that Jackie and Gail in TNA are much better, but Melina is the only woman wrestler right now who feels like anything special.

Carlito jobbed clean to the zombified remains of The Great Khali. That just sucked.

John Cena and Shawn Michaels bumped into each other backstage and Cena cut a helluva promo. I think he’s one of the best talkers going. He was really serious and the whole thing just worked brilliantly.

Cena and Michaels. With all the hype during the show, it could have been a huge disaster if they hadn’t delivered. But they did, BIG TIME! Cena was booed, as was expected, but it wasn’t huge like last week. The crowd sorta played the area between both guys, though it seemed like every time Michaels got a move or an escape that the crowd would react big. It was kind of like a Japanese crowd where the crowd would react to the spots and escapes.

They did some back and forth early, and while it wasn’t Benoit vs. Angle, it was strong and the crowd seemed to pay attention. Michaels was knocked out and Cena took charge, but Michaels came back and worked his magic. Big time spot was when Michaels went for a slingshot plancha and Cena caught him in mid-air! It was Awesome! Michaels went for Sweet Chine Music, but Cena ducked it and hit the FU, which got the crowd to react big, but when Michaels kicked out, they went even more nuts. They kept working great spots back and forth, and when Cena was going for an FU off of the Top Rope, Michaels got out and gave Cena a PowerBomb off the top!

At that point, I thought it was the best match I’ve seen in the WWE since last year. Michaels hit a Superkick, but it took him too long to get the cover and Cena made it to the ropes. They stood and Michaels got whipped into the turnbuckle and Cena went for the FU, but Michaels flipped out of it and hit the Sweet Chin Music for the pin. It was just as good as it could have been. Absolutely fantastic.

That is how you do a big match like that.

As far as its place in the history of great matches on Free TV, It falls in with four matches that I can think of: Flair vs. Steamboat in 1989 from New Orleans, Flair vs. Sting in 1987 at the first Clash of the Champions, Nick Bockwinkle vs. Curt Henning in 1986 from the Showboat in Vegas, and Benoit vs. Bret Hart from Nitro in 1999.

As for WWE matches on the same level for free, you’ve gotta add Michaels-Austin vs. Owen-Bulldog from 1997 or so, the classic Benoit-Jericho vs. HHH-Austin match from San Jose that I was there live for, and the Flair vs. Mr. Perfect match from 1993. Those are all classics and I’m sure that this’ll be Cena’s best remembered match. Far more people saw it than saw any of his other big classics.

That’s all for today! More next week!

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Chris Garcia