Falls Count Anywhere

05-03-07

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News
The Undertaker probably won’t get that long reign he had been training for due to injury. He tore his bicep in the match at Backlash and may well require surgery. This could be career ending considering how old he is (43 last time I checked) and the recovery time (6 to 8 months). Others in the WWE who have had to get the surgery include Batista. They’re not sure if he needs surgery yet or not, but he will find out in the next few days.

Rob Van Dam has turned down the last WWE offer and will be leaving in June or July depending on who you believe. TNA hasn’t made an offer, but now that they’ve heard he’s not re-signing to Vince, I’m betting they will.

There are several things that have to be considered, including the fact that RVD could do really well in Japan (I think his wife is Japanese) and on the larger indies, both of which he could work if he signed with TNA. Plus, RVD would get the run at all the guys he’s never faced, liked AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Chris Daniels and Sting. Of course, if history has taught us anything it’s that TNA will mess this one up, too!

No news on Goldberg other than he was talking about showing up on an upcoming PPV. It’s not TNA, though they still wanna sign him, but it might be the show coming from the LA Coliseum on June 2nd. That’s the show where Brock Lesnar will be fighting in MMA for the first time (I’m picking to win in a decision, though he has been trying on both strikes and submissions) and Bob Sapp might be on the card, and they’re trying to rematch Royce Gracie vs. Sakuraba from the famous 90 minute match from Tokyo where Sakuraba finally destroyed the Gracie myth once and for all. They’re pushing it as the biggest MMA card ever in the US and they’ve got a 90,000 seat arena. I’m betting on them drawing 25,000 at the absolute most unless they pull a few more really big names.

RAW
Wrestling. It’s what a lot of people say they want and often it’s what gets ignored on wrestling shows. Not recently though. Wrestling has been put back up high and we’re getting longer and better matches that are given time to develop.

Vince McMahon, complete with do-rag, runs into Cena backstage and does some stereotypical street stuff. I don’t like Vince as champion. I do like Cena as champion, as he’s provided a lot for folks to play off of over the last few months. I keep reading people who say that he needs to lose the belt. Except for Edge, I don’t’ see who could carry it nearly as well, and the WWE hasn’t had the same confidence in Edge for a while.

Speaking of Edge, he faced Randy Orton in a really strong, probably in the 3 ¾ stars range. Maybe even up to 4! It was very solid and I love the way that Edge gets so much heat he can make a guy like Orton into a temporary face. The two brawl to open and Edge takes a big bump to the outside. For a guy who has had serious neck issues, he’s taking some dangerous bumps.

Speaking of bumps, Edge Spears Randy in the back, causing him to fly over the announce table! It was a sweet-looking spot! Orton does a really high dropkick. I can see that the WWE doesn’t want to cut him because he’s a gifted athlete, but he’s gotta rein in his issues. Lots of exciting near falls and the finish is Orton going for the RKO, Edge shoving him away and then hitting the Spear for the pin. Really strong fifteen minute match. These guys are going to have a good feud.

They interviewed Santino Morella about his IC title win. I’m interested to see what they do with this. He thanked Robert Lashley, which was a nice touch.

They showed some of RVD’s WWE.com promo about Vince winning the ECW title. It was a passionate piece and it gave RVD a pretty high profile for a guy who’s about to leave. If they let RVD show this much in every episode, he’d be Stone Cold-level over. Sadly, he’s been misbooked for ages. Vince didn’t like the promo, so he made a match with RVD against Umaga.

Jeff Hardy pinned Johnny Nitro. Hardy has really pulled himself together (and reports have it that he’s cleaned up his act out of the ring too) and here he looked really good in a short match. Nitro didn’t get much in the way of offense, but he looked OK working with Hardy. Hardy hit the Swanton in less than five to get the win. Nitro and Melina aren’t popular with the booking team, it would seem.

Umaga beat RVD as a part of his long road towards his next territory. They gave them ten minutes and RVD actually did very well. Shane introduced Umaga, which was another nice touch, and we got an ad break right off. The timing of this episode seemed a little strange, nowhere more than the way they started this match.

Lots of striking from both guys, which I thought was a smart move because Umaga is supposed to be a high impact brawler and RvD can easily get heat with any striking advantage he shows. RVD avoids the Samoan Ass Attack and then tries a Sunset Flip which fails. Rolling Thunder from RVD doesn’t finish him, so Rob goes to the top rope for the Frog Splash. Umaga grabs him and gives him the Samoan Spike for the win in about ten minutes. Another solid match.

Yeehaw! Cowboy Troy is in the audience! He’s the co-host of Nashville Star and a big ‘rasslin’ fan from way back. You can see him in some old Smokey Mountain tapes.

Carlito and Flair continue their thing. It’s weird. I think Carlito is a star who is waiting to be booked like a star again after the first couple of pushes he got didn’t quite take him the places they’d have liked. Flair is Flair. They had a match with The World’s Greatest Tag Team where if Flarlito lost, they couldn’t team together again. Carlito and Haas and Benjamin worked pretty well together, but there was an awful toss into a Mule Kick attempt that didn’t pan out at all. It kinda sucked.

After that miscue, it got better, including a nice Frankensteiner from Carlito (and it was nearly as good as the one that Steiner did on the PPV a while back!). The whole thing was Carlito turning on Flair after he backdropped Shelton. That let to Carlito and Flair brawling up the ramp. This could have used more time.

The on-going story was that everyone was getting beat down before they could make it to the ring. Michaels, Edge, Orton, all of them were beaten unconscious. Hmmmmm…I smell crappy angle to set up a crappy challenger!

Melina and Victoria lost to Mickie James and Candice Michelle in an average five minute woman’s match. This wasn’t nearly on the level of the Backlash match, but it was good enough to not make me want to go away. Victoria has been criminally wasted. They had the perfect gimmick for her and they blew it with a capital bleh.

John Cena comes out and does a little promo. He says he’s there and Khali comes out. This is going to suck. True, they’ll probably get one PPV main event out of him and then it’s down the card he slides, but we still have to deal with Khali for at least another couple of months. In an impressive visual, Cena had Khali up for the FU, but Khali elbowed his way out of it and then hit the Two-Handed Chokeslam.

I liked this episode a lot. The booking has improved to the point that I think they might see the light at the end of the tunnel is actual wrestling. True, Khali isn’t a good wrestler, but one main event, the visual of Cena giving him the FU at the finish and that should be enough to justify using him for a short run.

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Chris Garcia